Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Message from the Queen

Mr. Speaker: I have to report to the House that its Address of 24 June relating to the birth of a son to their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales was presented this day to Her Majesty and that Her Majesty was pleased to receive the same very graciously and to give the following answer:

I thank you most sincerely for your loyal and dutiful address on the occasion of the birth of my grandson.

The expression of your pleasure at the birth of Prince William has much moved my husband and me and we are greatly touched by the good wishes which you have expressed towards my family.

PRIVATE BUSINESS

LONDON TRANSPORT (LIVERPOOL STREET) BILL

Considered; to be read the Third time.

BRITISH RAILWAYS (LIVERPOOL STREET STATION) BILL (By Order)

Order for Third reading read.

To be read the Third time upon Thursday 25 November.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

CS Gas

Mr. Parry: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what further consideration he has given to the requests for a public inquiry into the use of CS gas during the Toxteth riots in July 1981.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. William Whitelaw): I remain of the view that it would not be proper to institute such an inquiry. Civil proceedings are pending against the police on the part of three people injured by CS projectiles, and the matters are therefore sub judice.

Mr. Parry: In view of the grave anxiety that is felt on Merseyside and the call for a public inquiry, which is supported by the Liverpool city council, the Liverpool trades council, the Merseyside police committee, trade unions and many right hon. and hon. Members, in order to allay public disquiet and refute any claims of a cover up, will the Home Secretary reconsider the decision, bearing in mind the recent well-documented report in the New Statesman?

Mr. Whitelaw: I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman says about feelings on Merseyside, but I remain of the view that to establish an inquiry now would only prejudice the civil proceedings, and it would be wrong to do that.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House has heard that this matter is sub judice, or at least the use of it previously was sub judice. If that can be avoided, I shall call another question.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: As CS gas was used in Toxteth last year in defiance of the guidelines that were laid down by the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor in a statement to the House on 20 May 1965, what confidence does the Home Secretary have that his new guidelines will not also be defied? In view of the scale of the injuries caused by the use of Ferret cartridges on that occasion, will the right hon. Gentleman now ban its use and the use of CS gas in all circumstances on the British mainland?

Mr. Whitelaw: We have issued the new guidelines, and I have every confidence that they will be respected. It was realised that the use of Ferret cartridges on that occasion was a mistake, and that has been accepted.

Boundary Changes

Sir David Price: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take steps to require the Boundary Commission to make public the reasons for its final recommendations to him for boundary changes following a public inquiry.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Patrick Mayhew): The Parliamentary Boundary Commission for England is an independent body and we have no power to intervene in the conduct of its current review. I understand, however, that the commission's report will explain the reasoning behind its final recommendations for the whole of England.

Sir David Price: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that I find his reply a little odd, when the secretary of the Boundary Commission, in refusing to give me or the people of Hampshire any reason for its more eccentric proposals, tells me that it is answerable only to the Home Secretary? May I assume, from what my hon. and learned Friend seems to be saying, that the Boundary Commission is, in the technical sense of the word, an irresponsible quango?

Mr. Mayhew: My hon. Friend asks my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to "take steps to require" the commission to give reasons. We are not empowered by the legislation to require the Boundary Commission to give reasons, nor is it obliged by legislation to do so.

Mr. Flannery: If the Boundary Commission were seen to be violating its own terms of reference, which is the old Chartists' demand for equal electoral areas, and if that were on a considerable scale, is it not likely that the Home Secretary would take that into account when the commission's report eventually came before the House?

Mr. Mayhew: I would not answer one hypothetical question, let alone two.

Mr. Douglas Hogg: Will my hon. and learned Friend accept that it is confusing for a village or other local community, whose representations to an inquiry have been accepted, to find that the commission refuses to accept the conclusions of the commissioner as a result of the inquiry? Would it not be helpful if the commission were obliged to state its reasons for not accepting such recommendations?

Mr. Mayhew: I note what my hon. Friend says, but the commission is governed by the provisions of an Act passed by the House, as is my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. Any change such as my hon. Friend suggests would require new legislation.

Mr. George Cunningham: Is not the information given to the House by the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Sir D. Price) deeply disturbing? The secretary of the commission is praying in aid for what the commission is doing instructions or advice from the Home Office. Will the Home Office contact the secretary of the commission and put it to him that that is improper and not in accordance with the constitutional relationship, which I should have thought he already knew?

Mr. Mayhew: I am confident that those who work for, or are members of, the commission are well aware of their rights, obligations and duties under the legislation.

International Social Service

Mr. Proctor: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will seek to raise the cash limits made available by his Department to International Social Service of Great Britain in respect of the operation of Her Majesty's Government's repatriation scheme.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Timothy Raison): Payments to International Social Service of Great Britain are made from a cash-limited Vote which provides also for several other services for which the Home Office is responsible. We are satisfied that there will be no problem this year in meeting the cost of the repatriation scheme which the organisation operates on the

Government's behalf. The likely demand for assistance with repatriation is one of the factors taken into account annually before the Vote for a particular year is settled.

Mr. Proctor: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many immigrants will be disappointed by that reply? Is he sure that we are giving adequate aid under our 1979 manifesto commitment to give help and assistance to immigrants who genuinely want to leave this country?

Mr. Raison: I know that my hon. Friend is disappointed by my answer, but I do not think that many immigrants will be disappointed. I believe that the scheme as it operates at present is right.

Mr. Wrigglesworth: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the views pressed by those who claim that thousands of immigrants should go home are racially based and discriminatory and should be rejected out of hand? Will he, therefore, pursue policies that will encourage racial harmony, and will he particularly look at the immigration rules, which we debated recently, relating to children of people born in this country and ensure that they do not continue to suffer the uncertainty that is caused by the new draft rules?

Mr. Raison: We have made clear our position on repatriation. I have just reiterated it to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Proctor). In our debate on the immigration rules I set out the reasons for our proposals for dealing with children, and I believe that what we are putting forward is correct.

Mr. Marlow: Is my right hon. Friend aware that what the hon. Member for Thornaby (Mr. Wrigglesworth) has said is complete and utter rubbish? As he will know, it is an open question—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is a time for seeking information, not imparting it.

Mr. Marlow: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is an open question within the ethnic minorities whether the Government should pursue a more generous system of assisted resettlement, as many elderly immigrants and others wish to go back to the land from which they came, but have too much invested in pension schemes and other things in this country and cannot afford to go back? If there were a more generous scheme, they would wish to go. There is open discussion within the immigrant community on that matter.

Mr. Raison: We are not getting pressure from the immigrant community for resettlement grants.

Mr. Dubs: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Government's position on this issue is not seen to be clear, especially when they have supporters of the sort that we have just heard? Is it not up to the Minister to condemn all this talk of repatriation as being thoroughly objectionable? It comes only from racist elements in his party.

Mr. Raison: I have made the Government's position on this matter clear over and over again.

Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it proper for an hon. Member to refer to another hon. Member as racist?

Mr. Speaker: The comment was not applied to an individual. I noted carefully that it was applied to a group.

Liquor Licensing

Mr. Knox: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has any plans to introduce measures to implement the Erroll committee's report on liquor licensing.

Mr. Raison: We have at present no plans for further legislation in this area.

Mr. Knox: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the licensing laws are riddled with anomolies? Does he further agree that there is a strong case for introducing limited reforms similar to those introduced in Scotland, which are working satisfactorily?

Mr. Raison: I know that the licensing laws are subject to criticsm and dissatisfaction. The problem is to find a reasonable measure of agreement on what should replace them. We have followed carefully what is happening in Scotland, but it is too early to make a final judgment.

Mr. Snape: Will the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that there is increasing pressure from the licensing industry and others for flexibility in public house opening hours and that there is great anxiety within the trade about competition from the proliferation of outlets, such as wine bars, which are not subject to the same number of licensing controls as are public houses? Is it not about time that the Home Office introduced legislation to bring about much-needed reforms?

Mr. Raison: I have already acknowledged that there is some argument over whether the present laws are exactly right. I should not necessarily defend them for all time, but there needs to be greater agreement about the right course to take. Although there is pressure for liberalisation, there is also considerable concern about the problem of drunkeness, particularly among young people. We must get the right answer.

Mr. Hannam: Will my right hon. Friend look carefully at a rather silly anomaly in the liquor licensing laws which prevents charitable organisations from offering bottles of alcoholic liquor as prizes at functions held on unlicensed premises to raise funds for good causes?

Mr. Raison: I am aware of the concern about that matter but we have no plans for Government legislation on the issue.

Metropolitan Police

Mr. Campbell-Savours: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will set up a new inquiry into corruption in the Metropolitan Police.

Mr. Winnick: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is satisfied that there has been no obstruction of Operation Countryman.

Mr. Whitelaw: I am satisfied that an inquiry would not be justified. With regard to Operation Countryman, as I stated in my reply to a question by the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) on 21 October, I have concluded that there is no evidence of obstruction of a kind which would have prevented those concerned from doing their job.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: May I take the Home Secretary's mind back to the "World in Action" special programme during the Summer Recess, in which three

former chief constables, all eminent men in their field—Mr. Hambleton, Mr. Alderson and the former chief constable of Cumberland, Mr. Frank Williamson—maintained that the Countryman inquiry was obstructed by officers at Scotland Yard? Is the Home Secretary telling the House and the country that those eminent men were all misleading the nation on British television? If he is not telling us that, will he give us the full inquiry that everyone demands?

Mr. Whitelaw: I do not wish to get into personal arguments with former chief constables, but I am bound to say that Mr. Hambledon had said earlier that he had not been obstructed in any way. If he cares to retract that statement subsequently—

Mr. Christopher Price: He changed his mind.

Mr. Whitelaw: Yes, he changed his mind, but there must at least be questions about what faith one places in the judgment of someone who says at one time that he was not obstructed and says subsequently that he was. One is entitled to take that view. I am convinced that there was not obstruction. I have been into all the details very carefully, and I have been into all the work being done inside the Metropolitan Police to deal with any possibility of corruption. I am satisfied that the work is being done and will prevent corruption in the future.

Mr. Winnick: Is the Home Secretary aware that there is a great deal of public disquiet in the country at large, not just in London, as a result of the disturbing remarks made by the former chief constable who headed Operation Countryman? Nothing that the Home Secretary has said so far will clear up that public disquiet.
Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that hon. Members are not raising the matter with any wish to engage in police baiting or anything of that kind? It is in the interests of the police force that the allegations should be cleared up, and the only way that that can be done is by a thorough inquiry.

Mr. Whitelaw: I should not in any way suggest that the hon. Gentleman is police baiting in what he is saying. I must decide what is the best way to prevent corruption in the Metropolitan Police and, at the same time—as the hon. Gentleman said—do what is best for the police and for their morale. I have concluded that it would be wrong to have an inquiry. It is right to back the new commissioner, the deputy commissioner and the assistant commissioner for crime. A great deal has been done in recent years to root out corruption in the Metropolitan Police. They have my full confidence in doing so. I want them to get on with the job.

Mr. Flannery: Disgraceful.

Mr. Stanbrook: Are not the allegations against the police thoroughly reprehensible, in that they represent a generalised smear on a fine body of men whose record is very good indeed?

Mr. Whitelaw: I agree with my hon. Friend. Generalised smears are no good. I give Labour Members credit for not indulging in generalised smears. I trust that they are not doing so. I agree with my hon. Friend that if they were it would be unsatisfactory.
I have to judge the best way to root out and deal with corruption in the Metropolitan Police. I have given my view that the right way forward is to back the new


commissioner and his senior officers in what they are doing and not to make fresh inquiries into the past. That is my judgment and I stand by it.

Mr. Hattersley: As the police authority for London, will the Home Secretary say why he answered "No" to the principal and primary question about setting up a new inquiry into corruption in the Metropolitan Police? Is it because he does not believe that corruption exists at a level that would justify an inquiry, or is it because he thinks that corruption could be better pursued in a different way?

Mr. Whitelaw: It is because I believe that the right person to pursue corruption is the new commissioner, together with the deputy commissioner and the assistant commissioner for crime. I have confidence in them. If I were to set up another inquiry I should look as if I did not have confidence in them. I have confidence in them and that is why I am determined to back them.

Sir Frederick Burden: Does my right hon. Friend agree that efficient police officers who show themselves capable of dealing effectively with the most villainous criminals are liable to have their honour impugned by those criminals in order to gain an advantage? Therefore, is my right hon. Friend not right in assuming that the vast majority of our police force are honourable men, doing their duty, and that it is wrong for the House constantly to harass them?

Mr. Whitelaw: I agree that there is always the problem in such cases that some evidence comes from people with dubious records. That is inevitable. That is why it is difficult to form the right judgment.
The view of the House is clear. I am grateful to the House and to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley). We must root out corruption in the Metropolitan Police, and we must decide on the best way of doing that. I have told the House the way in which I think it should be done and I hope that the House will back me.

Mr. John Wells: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is only recently that ladies have been allowed in the Box and the Gallery, but I have never before noticed people holding hands and so on.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has sharp eyes.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: In deciding what happened at a crucial meeting between Mr. Hambleton, the deputy commissioner, and the Director of Public Prosecutions, is not the Home Secretary relying almost entirely on the accounts given by those two men? Had he had any personal contact with Mr. Hambleton to decide what actually happened? Until the truth about that meeting is clear we can never be wholly satisfied.

Mr. Whitelaw: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's anxiety, but I have given my view that, with the new commissioner, it is my duty to look to the future rather than constantly hark back to the past. I intend to look to the future, and I believe that I shall be fully backed in doing so.

Mr. Christopher Price: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that answer, I beg to give notice that I shall seek leave to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

Cruelty to Animals Act 1876

Mr. Ioan Evans: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to be able to introduce legislation to improve and update the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876.

Mr. Raison: When final agreement has been reached on the draft Council of Europe convention on this subject, and when parliamentary time permits.

Mr. Evans: As there is deep public anxiety about reports of animal cruelty, such as unnecessary laboratory experiments on animals for cosmetic purposes, intensive farming and blood sports, will the Government give the matter some priority, particularly as the legislation that has been announced is harmful to the British people?

Mr. Raison: I am aware of the worry about animal experiments. The ad hoc committee of the Council of Europe reached agreement earlier this year on the text of the draft convention which it expects to be finalised in the near future, ready for submission to the Council of Ministers early next year. We shall then be in a position to move forward.

Mr. Peyton: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the measure is really a fossil of such incredible antiquity that neither he nor his right hon. Friend is likely to be accused of headlong impetuosity if they get on with tidying it up?

Mr. Raison: I am resigned to the fact that I am unlikely to be accused of headlong impetuosity in this matter. On the other hand, the Act, which has been a great one, is still viable. However, we hope before long to put our proposals before the House to bring the legislation up to date.

Dr. Summerskill: Will the Minister remember that "for the time being" must be in this parliamentary Session, because it was a firm election pledge in the Conservative Party's manifesto to update the legislation on experiments on live animals? If the Government do not intend to carry out that election pledge, perhaps they will say so now.

Mr. Raison: I hope that before long we shall be in a position to put forward our proposals to deal with the matter.

Mr. Dudley Smith: Is my right hon. Friend aware that next month the Council of Europe is holding a public hearing on animal experimentation? That will give an adequate opportunity for democratic forms of expression to be made, from which will flow the convention which he mentioned, which will enable us to get our legislation right on the subject.

Mr. Raison: I am aware of that hearing, and we shall take considerable interest in what happens there.

Mr. Cryer: Will the Minister accept that on other issues—for example, asbestos safeguards—there has been a delay of many years when dealing with other countries in trying to reach a consensus? Will he assure the House that if there are any delays in the Council of Europe he will introduce legislation into this House to update what is regarded by many as an otiose, outdated and wholly inadequate piece of legislation?

Mr. Raison: Obviously, if the Council of Europe is not able to come to a conclusion on the matter, we shall have to think about going ahead on our own. However, I believe that the Council of Europe is working effectively, and it


is highly desirable that we should work in partnership with the other members of the Council of Europe in achieving the right outcome.

Racial Equality

Mr. Tilley: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what subjects he expects to discuss at his next meeting with the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality.

Mr. Raison: So far no arrangements have been made for a further meeting with the commission's chairman, but when my right hon. Friend next meets him it is likely that they will discuss a range of matters of mutual interest.

Mr. Tilley: Does the Minister expect the chairman to deal with the recent report of the Commission for Racial Equality, which shows that six out of 10 of all black youngsters in Britain between the ages of 16 and 20 are out of work? Does the Minister realise that the vast majority of those youngsters are British citizens? When the Secretary of State goes to that meeting, will he give the chairman of the CRE any hope at all that the Government will reduce that disgraceful and dangerous level of unemployment?

Mr. Raison: We are aware of the problem of unemployment among young blacks. We believe that the economic measures that we are pursuing, together with the special schemes for helping young unemployed people, are the best approach to the problem.

Mr. Robert Atkins: During the discussions, will my right hon. Friend talk about the perennial problem that faces Conservative Members who represent constituencies in which many Sikhs live, which is the wearing of turbans by Sikhs when riding motor cycles or when they are involved in other day-to-day activities?

Mr. Raison: As the House may know, leave to appeal against the recent decision by the Court of Appeal was granted this morning. That will ensure that there is a definitive statement by the House of Lords of the existing law. The Government understand the anxieties of the Sikh community following the Court of Appeal's decision. We shall be ready to consider whether legislative action is necessary in the light of the Lords' decision.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: When the Home Secretary meets the chairman of the CRE, would it not be wise if he said to the chairman that one of the best ways of dealing with discrimination in employment would be for the CRE to use its powers more effectively and more rapidly than it has in the past three years?

Mr. Raison: Both we and the CRE have noted carefully the conclusions of the Select Committee, of which the hon. Gentleman is a member, about the CRE's effectiveness in that regard. I have no doubt that it will do all that it can to operate its powers against discrimination as effectively as possible.

Mr. John Carlisle: When my right hon. Friend meets the chairman of the CRE, will he discuss the recent advertisment by Luton borough council for an Asian-speaking local officer? Does he agree that that is an insult to the indigenous population as well to the immigrant population, and that if people settle in this country they should learn to speak the language?

Mr. Flannery: Join the National Front.

Mr. Raison: I am in favour of the principle that all those living here should learn to speak English. It would be of enormous advantage if they could do so. However, if that officer were to work specifically among members of the minority who could not speak English, he could do a useful job.

Special Constabulary

Mr. Aitken: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the current strength of the Special Constabulary in England and Wales; and what was the equivalent figure in May 1979.

Mr. Mayhew: The strength in May 1979 is not known, but on 31 December 1979 it was 15,960. On 30 June 1982 it was 15,263. That represents an increase of 285 over the previous six months, and 1982 is the first year in the past 30 years in which numbers have gone up rather than down.

Mr. Aitken: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that that slight advance nevertheless represents a significant reversal of previous trends and is to be widely welcomed? As the Special Constabulary is widely acknowledged to be a very useful bridge between the regular police and the communities that they serve, will my hon. and learned Friend continue to take vigorous steps to strengthen and expand the Special Constabulary?

Mr. Mayhew: I am grateful for what my hon. Friend said. I agree with him. We are anxious to encourage all proper and increased use of special constables. A particularly encouraging scheme is being run by the chief constable of Northumbria, who is recruiting home beat special constables to help police the neighbourhoods in which they live.

Mr. Wrigglesworth: Despite that, and although the police establishments are up to the correct size, is it not a fact that during this year serious crime will rise, as has unemployment, above 3 million? What will the Government do to change their policies, which are palpably failing to stop more burglary and other such serious crime?

Mr. Mayhew: The Police and Criminal Evidence Bill, which is published today, will be of considerable assistance in that regard. I look forward to the hon. Gentleman's support for that measure.

Mr. Douglas Hogg: Does my hon. and learned Friend accept that one of the problems that has affected the Metropolitan Special Constabulary is the historic hostility between the regular force and the Special Constabulary? Will he consider inviting the new Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis to act urgently to involve the Special Constabulary with the regular force in its ordinary police functions?

Mr. Mayhew: As I would expect, the attitude of the present Commissioner—as it was of the previous Commissioner—is strongly to encourage the Special Constabulary. A long time ago there was hostility in certain quarters, but that is a thing of the past, and a good thing too.

Criminal Statistics

Mr. Alton: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the level of crime in Liverpool, in May 1979, and for the latest available period.

Mr. Whitelaw: The information available centrally relates to offences recorded throughout the Merseyside police area. About 28,500 notifiable offences were recorded by the police in that area in the second quarter of 1979, and about 34,600 in the second quarter of 1982.

Mr. Alton: Is the Home Secretary aware that since 1979 one crime has been committed every four minutes in the city of Liverpool and that there has been a 60 per cent. increase in robberies and a 35 per cent. increase in burglaries? How does the Home Secretary explain that? Does he stand by his statement in 1978 that there was no relationship—sorry, that there was a relationship—between the number of crimes committed and a high level of unemployment?

Mr. Whitelaw: I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman is asking me to substantiate. One moment he seems to say the opposite of what I said and the next moment he says what I did say. I have always accepted that unemployment is a factor in crime. I said it then, I say it now and I shall continue to say it. With regard to what can be done now,
I believe that co-operation between the police authority, the local police and the local community is crucial in dealing with crime in Merseyside and elsewhere. I look forward to the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends giving their full support and help to that community.

Mr. Parry: I am glad that the Home Secretary has agreed that there is a link between increased crime and higher unemployment. Unemployment in Merseyside, particularly in inner areas, is massive, and thousands of young people are roaming the streets. That is why crime is rising.

Mr. Whitelaw: I am always ready to answer questions in the House. I have spent a long time in the House and I have yet to discover when I have to answer questions that have not been asked.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: As the clear-up rate of serious crime by the Merseyside police force is one of the lowest in the country, and, as the Home Secretary said, successful policing depends on the police having the trust and confidence of the public, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is necessary to restore confidence in the police on the part of the public in Merseyside and that that could be best done by introducing an independent method for investigating complaints against the police and establishing a form of democratic accountability of the Merseyside police force to its constituent local authorities?

Mr. Whitelaw: The hon. Gentleman is prejudging many of the discussions that will take place on the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill. I accept that such co-operation is important. In our answer to the Select Committee we stated our belief in an independent assessor of police complaints. I have also made it clear that statutory consultation will be provided for in the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill. I look forward to hearing the hon. Gentleman's views on those matters.

Police Horses

Mr. Greenway: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police horses are at work in the Metropolis; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Mayhew: The Metropolitan Police own 180 working horses. The nature of their duties varies according to age.

Mr. Greenway: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware how deeply the nation appreciates the work of the Metropolitan Police men and women and the horses with which they work? Their work is both practical and ceremonial. Is he aware of how popular it would be if he were to create an award for such horses—since the horse is man's oldest and best friend—

Mr. Douglas Hogg: Golden Nosebags.

Mr. Greenway: —particularly for police horse Echo, which was gravely wounded in the Regent's Park bomb attack and which has made such a courageous recovery? If my right hon. and learned Friend could persuade my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence to do likewise for Army horse Sefton, that would be no less than justice.

Mr. Mayhew: The horses on police duty that serve us so faithfully deserve our gratitude and care, as do those who work with them and for them. I am glad that police horse Echo is completing a good recover, but I suspect that he cares more for meals than for medals.

Firearms Certificates

Mr. Hicks: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement concerning any proposals to increase the level of fees for firearms certificates.

Mr. Whitelaw: For the reasons given in my reply to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) on 10 November, the Government have decided not to increase fee levels for the time being. We shall consider the matter again in the light of a report from a forthcoming joint working party of the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers on the basis of the principle that fees should recover the full costs of operating the licensing system.

Mr. Hicks: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is widespread support for the decision to suspend any proposed increase in fees? When is the report of the working party likely to be received by his Department? Will he assure the House that income from those fees will not be used as an additional source of revenue?

Mr. Whitelaw: I cannot say when the report will be published. There never has been any idea that the fees should be used as an increased source of revenue.

Mr. Freud: Will the Home Secretary accept that many people in rural areas will welcome his statement? Why is he so much against people who have guns and so much for people who have dogs? Should not the criterion for a licence fee be the cost of administration?

Mr. Whitelaw: I am for people who have guns, provided that they use them legally for proper purposes. I am for people who have dogs.

Mr. Farr: Will my right hon. Friend look into the cause of the unreliability of present police costing methods


for the issuing of licences? Is he aware that it has resulted in one police authority producing a cost level several times higher than an adjacent one?

Mr. Whitelaw: That is the purpose of the working party. If the shooting organisations wish to put forward their views, such views will be welcome.

Immigration Rules

Mr. Marlow: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will publish a comparison between the immigration rules of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, France, Germany and the United Kingdom with regard to the entry rights of the husbands and fiancés of settled and citizen women.

Mr. Raison: No, Sir. The information available about the law and practice in other countries is not comprehensive enough to warrant being published.

Mr. Marlow: As the changes in access set out in the White Paper—which I hope will, sensibly, soon be deferred—are not the result of popular demand within the United Kingdom, they can only have come from popular demand from the Indian Sub continent. Does my right hon. Friend believe that it would be useful to see what the access rules are in that part of the world?

Mr. Raison: My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I have made it absolutely clear that the reasons for changing the rules for husbands and fiancés is that the changes derive from the creation of the new British citizenship. I accept that information is useful and desirable, but the problem is that, owing to the differences in settled status between different countries, it is hard to put it on the same footing.

Mr. Bidwell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is nonsense to suggest that only women overseas are worried about those matters? Women are hard done by in this country and they are waiting anxiously for the changes that the Home Secretary announced to the House the other day.

Mr. Raison: I accept that British citizen women have made the point that they are anxious for the changes to be brought in.

Mr. Budgen: Germany and France have much more stringent rules for their guest workers than we have for our immigrants. Is it not ironic that one of the considerations in the framing of our new immigration rules should be the fear of an adverse ruling by the European Convention on Human Rights, of which France and Germany are the principal signatories?

Mr. Raison: It is debatable whether the rules about German guest workers are as my hon. Friend has described. We have proposed the changes to deal with the creation of the new British citizenship.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Will the Minister tell his hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) that a settled person is not a guest worker? No civilised country stops its settled women bringing in their fiancés and husbands.

Mr. Raison: I can only repeat that it is difficult to draw parallels between the different status of immigrants in different countries.

Plastic Bullets and CS Gas

Mr. Meacher: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what guidelines have been issued to the police about the use of plastic bullets or CS gas cartridges.

Mr. Whitelaw: Guidelines on the use of plastic baton rounds and CS by the police service in England and Wales to restore public order were summarised in the reply I gave on 19 October last year to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Montgomery). They have not been changed since.

Mr. Meacher: As we know from the trial and acquittal of Kenneth Anderson that the police fired lethal CS cartridges at people on the streets, how can the Home Secretary pass that off blandly as a mistake? If the policeman who fired the cartridges did not know, or knew but ignored, the guidelines, what guarantee is there that his latest guidelines will not be ignored equally? If the policeman knew of them, but did not intend to hit anyone, does that not show how vicious such weapons can be and how dangerous the accidents? Is that not a reason for banning them from British streets?

Mr. Whitelaw: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the guidelines were issued after the use of those cartridges. As I explained on 19 October last year, and have stated again today, the chief constable of Merseyside acknowledges that Ferret cartridges should not be used again to deal with public disorder.

Mr. Hattersley: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I shall call the right hon. Member and allow one minute extra for Prime Minister's Questions.

Mr. Hattersley: The Home Secretary will be aware that in a number of newspapers there have been reports that chief constables—not police committees—have expressed their view that there is no appropriate use for such weapons and that they have declined to train their forces in the use of CS gas and plastic baton rounds. Will the Home Secretary publish in Hansard a list of those authorities which are training their men in the use of such weapons, those which are not, and the various types of weapons that have been provided by the police forces which have chosen to use them?

Mr. Whitelaw: If that is what the right hon. Gentleman wants, I shall certainly respond to it. I shall seek an accurate assessment of all those figures and report them to the House.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER

Engagements

Mr. Barry Jones: asked the Prime Minister what are her official engagements for 18 November.

The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. Later I took part in the presentation of the Humble Address to Her Majesty the Queen on the occasion of the birth of Prince William of Wales. In addition to my duties in the House I shall be having further meetings later today, including one with President Masire of Botswana. This evening I shall be attending a State banquet at Hampton Court Palace given by Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in honour of Her Majesty the Queen.

Mr. Jones: Will the Prime Minister take the opportunity to say that she comprehends the humiliation and hopelessness that engulfs the homes of those who are made redundant? Will she consider restoring urgently the 5 per cent. cut in unemployment benefit? As a further boost to unemployed people will she consider sacking her Secretary of State for Employment, who has the most diseased mind in British politics?

The Prime Minister: I am well aware of the difficulties faced by those who are made redundant. The real solution is to make more goods at prices and designs that will sell. There is no other way to secure more jobs. I utterly disagree with the hon. Gentleman with regard to my excellent colleague the Secretary of State for Employment.

Mr. David Steel: Will the Prime Minister confirm that at the meeting next week of the European Council of Ministers the Government will support the European Parliament's proposal for a common election system in Europe?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I do not even know whether it will be on the agenda.

Mr. Alexander: Will my right hon. Friend take time today to note the remarkable position with regard to food prices since the last general election? Will she recollect that during the period of the Labour Government food prices rose by 120 per cent., whereas since the 1979 election they have risen by only 32 per cent.? That figure is less than the average increase in inflation during that period.

The Prime Minister: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The Labour Government's record in increasing food prices was disgraceful. [Interruption.] Our record has been much better. The average annual rate of increases in food prices under the Labour Government—[Interruption.]—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House knows that the Prime Minister must be heard. Any right hon. or hon. Member who is called to speak is entitled to be heard.

The Prime Minister: The average annual increase in food prices under the Labour Government was 16·8 per cent. Under this Government the average annual increase is of the order of 8 per cent.

Mr. Foot: Perhaps we could have a special Question Time for planted questions. I am sure that the right hon. Lady will appreciate from this morning's news that the future of Tadworth hospital for children now rests with the Government and with her. Will she take immediate steps to instruct the Secretary of State for Social Services to provide the money to keep that hospital going?

The Prime Minister: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, at a meeting last night the board of governors recommended that the services at Tadworth Court be transferred to Queen Mary's hospital, Carshalton, which is only a few miles away. The Secretary of State is considering that proposal as well as the proposal from the charities. He will, of course, receive representations before he reaches his final decision, which will be made as quickly as possible. There is no question of patients being turned out of the hospital or of services being ended.

Mr. Foot: I asked the right hon. Lady what she was going to do about it. Some of us have corresponded with

the Secretary of State on behalf of our constituents for several months. I believe that all Opposition Members are agreed that the hospital should be kept open. That means that something like £1·5 million is needed. When the Prime Minister said at her party conference that the National Health Service was safe in her hands, was she excluding Tadworth hospital for children?

The Prime Minister: There is a proper procedure to go through and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will go through it sympathetically.
Later—:

Mr. Stanbrook: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have always understood that personal insults are out of order in the House. You may not have heard the hon. Member for Flint, East (Mr. Jones) accuse a right hon. Member of having the most diseased mind in British politics. Should not the hon. Member for Flint, East be told to withdraw that remark?

Mr. Speaker: This point of order gives me a chance to tell the House that no one's arguments are advanced by sheer personal abuse. It adds nothing to anyone's argument. I should have thought that most hon. Members have an argument to advance and need not use personal abuse.

Mr. Foulkes: asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 18 November.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Foulkes: Is the right hon. Lady aware of the report produced by Strathclyde regional council, which shows that the closure of Ravenscraig steelworks will result in the direct loss of 13,500 jobs at the very least? Given the despair and uncertainty caused by current steel closures in an area of massively high unemployment, will she give an assurance that the Government will not even contemplate the option put forward by the British Steel Corporation for the closure of the Ravenscraig works?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is discussing the future of the steelworks in the context of the future of steel production and the need not to take precipitate action in the short-term but, instead, to consider the longer-term position. He will consider the whole question of the future of the steelworks and I hope that he will be in a position to announce his decision before Christmas. Action will not be precipitate or taken on a short-term view, but on a longer-term basis.

Sir Bernard Braine: Has my right hon. Friend yet been able to consider a subject that was studiously avoided by the nations that voted recently at the United Nations for a resumption of negotiations between Britain and Argentina? Now that the graves of hundreds of the Argentine junta's victims are being uncovered, what steps will my right hon. Friend take to inquire into the whereabouts of those British subjects who disappeared in 1976–77, and to demand an explanation?

The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend knows, we have made representations about those British subjects who are known to have disappeared. Fortunately, fewer British subjects have disappeared than other nationals, but each and every one is a human life. Those people disappeared under the Argentine's military Governments.


That is another reason for not negotiating in any way with the Argentine Government over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.

Miss Joan Lestor: Will the Prime Minister find time today to do what I did this morning—[Interruption.] When the public hear the guffaws from male Members of Parliament they may be able to reach a judgment about a very serious matter. Will the Prime Minister do what I did this morning and visit the breast cancer unit at the Royal Marsden hospital, where she will learn that 1 in 17 women in Britain are likely to suffer from breast cancer at any one time? If that unit closes, some of the women who would have been saved will die. Is the right hon. Lady prepared to tell the House now that she will find the money to save that unit?

The Prime Minister: The Royal Marsden is a postgraduate teaching hospital, managed by a special health authority, which is directly accountable to the Secretary of State. The allocation to that authority has not been cut and the authority is undertaking a review of all its activities so that it can decide its priorities.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: When the right hon. Lady has occasion to count the cost—as I am sure that she does—in terms of casualties and suffering, of the constitutional arrangements recently imposed on Northern Ireland, will she consider how she can best use her personal authority to restore confidence in the Government's commitment to Northern Ireland as a part of the United Kingdom?

The Prime Minister: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the commitment to Northern Ireland is enshrined in legislation. There will be no change without the consent of the people of Northern Ireland. I agree that terrorism is grave, but we shall continue to wage an unrelenting war on it. We have great confidence in the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Ulster Defence Regiment and our Armed Forces. I pay tribute to the excellent way in which they continue to discharge their duties.

Mr. Fairbairn: Will the Prime Minister use her influence today to ask Opposition Members to place in the Library a list of the goods that they have bought from British manufacturers out of concern for unemployment, and a list of the goods that they have bought from foreign manufacturers? In that way, we shall know the depth of their emotional concern for Linwood and Ravenscraig.

The Prime Minister: I am sure that the Opposition will have heard my hon. and learned Friend's comments. It is important to try to buy as many British goods as possible, always assuming that their quality, design and price can compete with those from abroad. We are in business not to try to protect inefficient companies but to persuade people to buy British when there is a proper and effective choice.

Mr. Christopher Price: asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 18 November.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Price: Will the right hon. Lady find time today to consider the issue of science policy? Is she aware that the Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts sent to discover which Minister was in charge of it and received the reply that she was? Given the absolute pledges made by two Leaders of the House that responsible Ministers will attend Select Committees, will she come and tell the Select Committee about science policy? It is an important issue, upon which the regeneration of British industry depends.

The Prime Minister: Responsibility for the research aspect of science policy lies with the Department of Education and Science. There is a Minister and a very well known organisation for it. The research and technological grants given by other Departments are a matter for them. I stress that science policy is not a thing apart and separate from Departments. It should be a part of each and every Department. It would be wrong to try to sever it and to make it into a separate Department.

Mr. Timothy Smith: asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 18 November.

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Smith: Has my right hon. Friend seen today's reports that the Treasury is apparently considering the abolition of tax relief on mortgage interest? Will she reaffirm the Government's commitment to home ownership and their determination to maintain tax relief on mortgage interest?

The Prime Minister: I saw those reports. I have no idea where they came from. There is no truth in them and there will not be so long as I remain First Lord of the Treasury.

Mr. James Lamond: When the Prime Minister addressed the NATO Assembly in Westminster Hall yesterday and reached the passage in her speech that referred to the pledge of member States to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, based on human liberty, democracy and the rule of law, did she notice any uneasy stirrings among the representatives of the Turkish Government? Does she agree that that military Government have broken every one of those matters by placing many trade unionists and leading people in the peace movement on trial simply for trying to exercise the freedoms of which she was boasting yesterday?

The Prime Minister: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Turkish Government are committed to restoring democracy, which is a jolly sight more than the Soviet Union is.

Sterling (Exchange Rate)

Mr. Peter Shore: (by private notice) asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement about the level of sterling and the Government's exchange rate policy.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Geoffrey Howe): The movements of the sterling exchange rate in the markets this week have been fully reported. Successive Governments have made it their practice not to make statements about the level of the exchange rate. I do not intend to depart from that practice. There are, however, two points that should be made.
First, the right hon. Gentleman asked about exchange rate policy. Let me assure him and the House that there has been no change in the policy of this Government, which has continued to be that the exchange rate should reflect market forces.
Secondly, let me similarly assure the right hon. Gentleman that the Government are determined to maintain firm monetary conditions conducive to success in the fight against inflation. We back that up by determined control of public expenditure and by reducing public borrowing as a share of national output. As I made clear to the House in last week's debate, we shall maintain these policies.

Mr. Shore: I am grateful to the Chancellor for making that statement. I might call it in some places a non-statement. Does he agree that it is a wholly understandable, if delayed, reaction by the foreign exchange markets to the appalling and uncorrected loss of competitiveness of British industry and, indeed, to the prospective wiping out of our current account deficit next year as revealed in the autumn statement?
Does the Chancellor consider that the movement of the exchange rate is beneficial, or not, to Britain's hard-pressed industry? Will he make it plain that he does not intend to reverse the adjustment by raising interest rates once again?
Does the Chancellor agree that it is far better to have a coherent and industry-related exchange rate policy than one that is buffeted and will increasingly be buffeted by foreign exchange markets as they come to understand the appalling weakening of Britain's real economy—in jobs, industrial output and general growth?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The right hon. Gentleman has asked several questions, all of which essentially relate to industrial strategy. It is true, as hon. Members have pointed out on several occasions, that a moderate movement of the exchange rate of this type may be of some help to some parts of manufacturing industry but only if they control their costs rigorously to retain that benefit.
It is extremely important on this occasion, as on previous ones, that one should underline the need for continued and increased success in moderation in pay bargaining. The United Kingdom cannot solve its basic problems of competitiveness by depreciation. No one in the market, therefore, should have any doubt about our

determination to hold fast to our strategy to beat inflation. Sound money remains at the heart of our economic strategy.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that I have said previously that a private notice question is an extension of Question Time. I shall allow two questions from each side and then move on. That is what I have normally done.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer confirm, contrary to the implications of many press reports, that a fall in the exchange rate cannot of itself cause inflation, nor a rise in the exchange rate remedy inflation?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: As I have often made clear to the House and to the right hon. Gentleman, many factors may or may not be regarded as causative of inflation. That is why the Government's policy is founded on the maintenance of a well-disciplined and well-balanced monetary policy. With regard to inflationary impacts or effects in industry, I repeat that it is for industry and those who work in it or manage it to take their own steps, in the light of their own competitive conditions, to maintain and improve their competitiveness.

Mr. Higgins: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, although there were various interpretations of the CBI conference debate on the exchange rate, it was clear that British industry did not want a soft option? Does he also agree that if we are to restore our competitiveness, it must be achieved by a policy of restraining excessive wage settlements and cutting industrial costs, not by a downward spiral of devaluation, higher prices and higher wage settlements of the type envisaged by the Opposition?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am happy to endorse every one of my hon. Friend's propositions.

Mr. Joel Barnett: I was interested to hear what the Chancellor said about exchange rates policy being related only to market forces. Bearing in mind the enormous advantage to manufacturing industry and jobs of the present decline in the exchange rate, may we take it from what the Chancellor said that he will not intervene in any way to ensure that the exchange rate will go up again?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I shall not depart from my policy on the exchange rate as I outlined it. I shall allow it to be regulated by market forces. The right hon. Gentleman must appreciate that, although a lower exchange rate may bring some advantages to some companies and some industries, it also means higher costs to some industries and the consumer. No one can welcome that.

Mr. Forman: As there is no such thing as the perfect exchange rate for the pound against all currencies, and as the real problem is one of exchange rate volatility, is my right hon. and learned Friend prepared to reconsider the possibility of full British participation in the European monetary fund?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The factors that have so far led successive Governments not to join the exchange rate mechanism do not seem to me to have changed significantly in the past few days.

Business of the House

Mr. Michael Foot: Will the Leader of the House state the business for next week?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 22 NOVEMBER—Until about seven o'clock, debate on an Opposition motion on the problems and needs of disabled people, and afterwards debate on an Opposition motion on the need for the immediate restoration of the 5 per cent. abatement of the unemployment benefit.
Motion relating to the National Assistance (Charges for Accommodation) Regulations.
TUESDAY 23 NOVEMBER—Second Reading of the Housing and Building Control Bill.
Motion relating to the Education (Mandatory Awards) Regulations.
WEDNESDAY 24 NOVEMBER—Second Reading of the Energy Bill.
Motion relating to the British Nationality (Fees) Regulations.
Motions on the Social Security (Contributions Re-rating) Order and on the Social Security (Contributions) Amendment (No. 2) Order.
THURSDAY 25 NOVEMBER—Motion relating to the Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) (Amendment) (No. 7) Regulations.
Motion on the Government's proposals on lorries, people and the environment.
FRIDAY 26 NOVEMBER—Private Members' Motions.
MONDAY 29 NOVEMBER—Second Reading of the Telecommunications Bill.

Mr. Foot: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for arranging the debate on the Education (Mandatory Awards) Regulations for which we have been pressing for many weeks. What does he propose to do about the mounting crisis in the steel industry? The news from Europe and elsewhere causes the gravest concern both in the country and in the House. We have had promises that the Government would make a statement on the matter as they have taken over full and direct responsibility for the industry. We must surely have an early statement, especially in view of yesterday's announcement of the Round Oak closure, where 1,500 jobs are threatened. In addition, another 427 jobs at the Ravenscraig works in Motherwell are threatened. Apparently, these closures will take place before the Minister reaches any decision or comes to the House to discuss the future of the industry. Will the right hon. Gentleman look into this matter and consider arranging a statement from the Secretary of State for Industry on Monday, irrespective of the wider debate on the future of the industry that we shall obviously demand?
Over the last few weeks, the right hon. Gentleman has given three undertakings on further debates. The first relates to security, on which the Prime Minister made an announcement last week. There was general agreement in all parts of the House that we should have a debate on that subject without waiting for the report of the Security Commission. When will that take place.?
We also asked for a debate on fisheries, and I should like to know when that will take place. Last week, the right

hon. Gentleman agreed that we must have an early comprehensive debate before the Government take any action on the Hunt report.

Mr. Biffen: I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's modest crumbs of thanks for the debate on the Education (Mandatory Awards) Regulations.
I understand the right hon. Gentleman's anxieties about the steel industry. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry is at present at the Council of Ministers meeting at Elsinore. He will be returning later this evening, and I imagine that he will wish to report to the House at the earliest opportunity. I shall draw the right hon. Gentleman's comments to his attention. Part of the case that my right hon. Friend has argued at Elsinore has been the extent to which the United Kingdom has seen a much sharper contraction of its steel industry than that of other Community countries.
Last week, the Leader of the Opposition asked that the security situation be debated
in the next few weeks".—[Official Report, 11 November 1982; Vol. 31, c. 681.]
I am alerted to that, and it is perhaps a matter that can best be pursued through the traditional channels.
I am unable to offer a debate on fisheries next week, but the Government intend that the subject will be debated. As I told the House last week, I accept that we must have a debate on the Hunt report and cable television, and we must do so before the establishment of Government policy.

Mr. Foot: My hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Dr. Bray) will no doubt be pressing the right hon. Gentleman for a debate on the steel industry, but closures have been either announced or projected in other steel-making constituencies before a statement has been made to the House. That necessitates such a statement at the beginning of next week, even if it will be a few weeks more before the Government make up their mind about the steel industry generally.

Mr. Biffen: I have no wish to manufacture swords when ploughshares will do. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry will be making a statement on his steel discussions at the Council of Ministers. I shall draw his attention to the points that have been raised this afternoon, and I hope that we shall be able to find a way forward as a result.

Mr. Robert Adley: In view of the importance of the Serpell report to the future of British Rail, when do the Government expect to receive it and when will it be published? Will the House have a full chance to debate that report, with all its implications, before the Government reach any decision?

Mr. Biffen: I cannot answer my hon. Friend's questions now, but I shall have the matter investigated and will be in touch with him.

Mr. Donald Stewart: It is intolerable that the right hon. Gentleman cannot offer an early debate on fisheries. In view of the disquiet throughout the country about the recent agreement, and in view of allegations that there have been further surrenders even since then, it is vital that the House should have an opportunity to discuss the matter.

Mr. Biffen: I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who has listened to the misrepresentation of the policy, will be the first to seek a debate.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Peter Walker): indicated assent.

Mr. Biffen: It is merely a question of arranging the debate as soon as it is convenient, having regard to the other pressures on our debating time.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Trade following his decision to reverse the decision of the registrar of business names to allow libraries to draw information from Companies House, particularly as it seems that the right hon. Gentleman took that decision following pressure from Conservative Back Benchers to protect the private company agency services?

Mr. Biffen: In no sense do I accept the latter part of the hon. Gentleman's remarks. I shall draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to what he has said and will ensure that he gets an answer.

Sir Charles Fletcher-Cooke: My right hon. Friend will be aware that the law of the sea treaty will be open for signature in Jamaica on 6 December and that we still do not know whether the Government propose to sign. Will he ensure that one of his colleagues makes an announcement some time next week on what the Government's policy is?

Mr. Biffen: I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is making a prudent assessment of where the national interest lies in this fairly complex problem. I shall draw his attention to the points that my hon. and learned Friend has made.

Mr. George Foulkes: Regrettably, the Mental Health (Scotland) Bill is starting its journey through Parliament in another place. When it reaches the House of Commons, will the Leader of the House consider whether it should be examined, as was the English Mental Health (Amendment) Act, in a Special Standing Committee—a procedure that proved to be extremely successful? Voluntary and other bodies in Scotland would like it to be considered in that way. Will he also look into the possibility of the Special Standing Committee meeting in Edinburgh to consider these representations?

Mr. Biffen: I should like to make a reflective judgment on that point rather than an instantaneous one.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: My right hon. Friend will be aware that during Question Time, the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education and Science, the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price), mentioned the important matter of science policy. My right hon. Friend will be aware that there is concern on this subject on both sides of the House. Not only is it a subject of immense importance but it does not divide neatly into conventional party categories of opinion. It has been the subject of a full-scale debate in the other place, but it has only been debated on the Adjournment in this House. As a number of hon. Members would like to discuss the matter, how soon can that be done?

Mr. Biffen: The succinct and semi-flippant answer is, "Not next week". My hon. Friend raises a serious issue, but, given the pressures on parliamentary time, there is no immediate prospect of such a debate in Government time.

Mr. Donald Anderson: May we have a clear undertaking that the debate on security will take place before the Christmas recess? Do the Government intend to table a paper, even if it is on an interim basis, containing the conclusions that have emerged from the Prime case, which have been with the authorities for well over six months?

Mr. Biffen: I would rather confine my remarks to the answer that I gave to the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: Since the Health Service pay dispute continues and the number of ancillary workers in the Health Service has increased by the same number as the population of Great Britain in the last decade, whereas the number of health workers has not increased at all, and in view of the effect of that on medical services at cottage hospitals, may we have an early debate on the privatisation of such services in the Health Service?

Mr. Biffen: I regret that on the present showing we cannot have such a debate next week, or even shortly after.

Mr. Arthur Palmer: When is the House likely to have a statement on the Government's intentions in relation to the Bondi report on the Severn barrage, which has for long been promised to the House? Is debate on the report likely?

Mr. Biffen: The issue has massive implications to all in the South-West and South Wales. I shall draw the hon. Gentleman's remarks to the attention of the relevant Ministers.

Mr. Edward du Cann: I appreciate my right hon. Friend's assurance that there will be a prompt statement by the Secretary of State for Industry on steel, perhaps tomorrow, but will the Leader of the House keep an open mind about the possibility of a full debate on the subject? Is he aware that it is causing the gravest anxiety throughout the industry in the United Kingdom? May I repeat a suggestion that my right hon. Friend allowed me to make a few weeks ago—that before long we should debate the Civil Service?

Mr. Biffin: The answer to my right hon. Friend's first question must be yes. I take note of my right hon. Friend's interest in a debate on the Civil Service. Index-linked pensions, which are a related subject, have caused interest and have been debated recently. I hope that my right hon. Friend will not think me too unforthcoming if I say that I cannot give much hope of a debate in the immediate future.

Mr. Bob Cryer: Is the Leader of the House aware that John Pilger's film "The Truth Game" was shown in the House today? Can he guarantee a statement next week on the IBA's refusal to allow it to be shown when it complies with IBA guidelines on nuclear warfare propaganda? Does the Leader of the House agree that that is an outrageous act of censorship? Does he agree that it must be debated and questioned in the House, particularly since it is likely that the Ministry of Defence is blocking


the complementary programme which the IBA requires and is, therefore, effectively preventing the showing of the "The Truth Game"?

Mr. Biffin: The answer to the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question is no. I shall draw the Home Secretary's attention to the hon. Gentleman's comments in the second part of his question.

Mr. Tony Marlow: On a technical point, is it possible for the proposals in the White Paper on the new immigration rules to be divided into two so that those that are purely concerned with updating the law under the British Nationality Act can be laid before the House at once, whereas the more problematical ones to do with changes in access can await the final outcome of the debate in the country to see what the demand is for the changes? If that is possible, may it not be a useful way of pursuing the matter?

Mr. Biffen: I do not think that I know the answer, but I shall inquire of the Home Office to see whether it can help my hon. Friend.

Mr. John Maxton: Will the Leader of the House answer the question that I put to him last week?

Mr. Biffen: Yes. After due consideration, I believe that it would be unwise for the House to depart from its traditional practice that Scottish Committees reflect the balance of opinion in the House as a whole.

Mr. Nick Budgen: May we have an early debate on manufacturing industry in the West Midlands? Is my right hon. Friend aware that all hon. Members will wish to express their sadness at what happened recently at Round Oak? Is he further aware that that sadness will be more than balanced by the delight that many will wish to express at the way in which the sterling exchange rate has fallen? Does my right hon. Friend agree that that will be reflected by those who say that the slight adverse affect upon the retail prices index is of little importance in the light of the Chancellor's determination to hold down money supply?

Mr. Biffen: My hon. Friend puts the matter in a regional context. The West Midlands is the home of the chemical engineering small business sector. We are due to have a debate on small businesses on Friday and I hope that my hon. Friend will have the good fortune to put his arguments then.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I propose to call those hon. Members who have been rising from the beginning, if they are succinct.

Dr. Jeremy Bray: When the Leader of the House speaks to the Secretary of State about his statement on steel next week will he draw his attention to the needs of engineering and special steels because the British Steel Corporation seems to be pre-empting decisions by Ministers in announcing the closure yesterday of the Round Oak works and today of barmills at Craigneut in my constituency? Is that not important in the light of further restrictions on the import of engineering steels into America at the behest of the United States President?

Mr. Biffen: I shall ensure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is acquainted with the hon. Gentleman's anxieties.

Mr. Frank Dobson: Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the financing of the three hospitals in the Great Ormond Street group before the Secretary of State makes a decision? Does he agree that it is vital that the House debates the matter because the group's problems result exclusively from the Government's financial policies which involve restricting money to the group? Will the right hon. Gentleman ask his right hon. and hon. Friends to stop saying that these wonderful hospitals are the victims of their own success? Surely, in a sensible society success is rewarded and not punished.

Mr. Biffen: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman realises that in no sense do I disparage the significance of the issue if I suggest that it could properly be pursued in private time rather than Government time.

Mr. Tom Clarke: Does the Leader of the House intend to seek a review of Standing Orders and procedures in the House? If he does, will he bear it in mind that many Back Benchers are frustrated at their inability to take part in debates because they are squeezed out by the lengthy speeches of Privy Councillors and others? Does the Leader of the House agree that the House ignores that at its peril?

Mr. Biffen: The hon. Gentleman should not be disillusioned so soon.

Mr. Dobson: If he is not disillusioned now, he never will be.

Mr. Biffen: I was not aware of an ovewhelming desire in the House to alter the rules, but I shall consider what the hon. Gentleman suggests.

Mr. David Winnick: Does the Leader of the House recognise the great importance of having a debate on the West Midlands as soon as possible in view of the continuing redundancies and closures which give the lie to claims about economic recovery? Is the right hon, Gentleman aware of the despair, misery and devastation brought to the region under his Government? Does he accept that we should debate the matter as soon as possilble?

Mr. Biffen: My job is to answer questions rather than to engage in debate. I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) more accurately reflected the balance of concern about such issues. Be that as it may, both the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend will have their chance in the debate on Friday.

Mr. Alfred Dubs: Is the Leader of the House aware that there is a serious crisis in London, where, because prisons are overcrowded, prisoners held on remand in custody are accommodated in police or court cells? The consequence is inadequate facilities for washing, excercise, and sometimes visiting. Will he urge the Home Secretary to make an early statement on this serious matter so that we can come to grips with it?

Mr. Biffen: I agree that it is a serious matter and I shall draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to the hon. Gentleman's points.

Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk: As unemployment on Merseyside has increased by more than 150 per cent. since the Government came to office—there are now more than 160,000 unemployed in the region—and unemployment will not be reduced to an acceptable level even if there is a miraculous upturn in the economy, will the Leader of the House allow a special debate, not a general one, on Merseyside so that we can hear about the special measures that the Government will introduce to invigorate industry in that area?

Mr. Biffen: I recognise the great economic difficulties that beset Merseyside, but I cannot offer the prospect of such a regional debate next week or in the near future.

Unemployment Statistics

4 pm

The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Norman Tebbit): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about unemployment statistics.
In March 1981 a scrutiny under the auspices of Sir Derek Rayner on the payment of benefit to unemployed people recommended that registration at jobcentres by unemployed people claiming benefit should become voluntary, as it was not an effective test of availability for work and abolition would benefit both job seekers and the employment service. Acceptance of that recommendation was announced in July last year and it came into effect on 18 October. Jobcentres can now cut wasteful procedures and concentrate on their main task of matching jobs and job seekers.

Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk: How do they do that?

Mr. Tebbit: Unemployed job seekers who can find work for themselves are no longer compelled to visit jobcentres. Claimants need visit only the benefit office where a test of availability for work now takes place. That simplification of procedure will lead to savings of 1,350 staff and £10 million a year.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: They might as well be abolished.

Mr. Tebbit: As a consequence of voluntary registration, the records of people registering at jobcentres are no longer a valid basis for unemployment statistics. Because of that the unemployment count has been transferred to benefit offices and is based on the records of claimants, which are held mainly on computers. The change was explained in the Employment Gazette in April last year. Attention was again drawn to the forthcoming change in a reply to a parliamentary question on 29 July this year and a further article appeared in the Employment Gazette in September.
The figures for November will be published on the new basis. To enable a fair comparison of past and future unemployment figures, I am today publishing figures on the new basis for the past year. An explanatory note is available in the Vote Office. The new figures are more accurate. They give a more up-to-date picture on the day of the count. Instead of depending on costly manual counts in hundreds of offices throughout the country, they will be based on carefully tested and working computerised systems.
Although the new totals differ from those that the old system produced, the trend in unemployment shown by the new figures is no less reliable. In the new totals, severely disabled people who were formerly excluded are now included. However, a count of people who register at jobcentres but who do not claim benefit is no longer possible and they are not included. Finally, the count is reduced because the use of the benefit computer records removes far more of those who find jobs in the period immediately before the day of the count. Under the manual system they could have been recorded as unemployed for up to a fortnight or more after they started work.
During the past year the reduction between the new count and the old would have varied from month to month. It would generally have been between 170,000 and 190,000. On October the difference was exceptionally


large at 246,000. Nearly half the difference is the result of the more accurate count, which in October removed about 100,000 people who were no longer unemployed. To ensure a fair picture, there will be a special count in the summer of new school leavers who are not yet entitled to benefit.
The new figures do not make the problem of unemployment less serious, but they give more accurate and less expensive statistics.

Mr. Eric G. Varley: Is the Secretary of State aware that his announcement is a cosmetic device to conceal the number of registered unemployed? The removal of 246,000 unemployed at a stroke will not fool anyone. Is it not a pity that the right hon. Gentleman has not told the House today that he is fulfilling his job as Secretary of State for Employment by announcing a real reduction in unemployment? Will he list the effects of the cosmetic reduction region by region?
Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that when unemployment was only one third of today's level the Prime Minister used to stand at the Dispatch Box and tell the House that under the Labour Government people were not getting real jobs? This Government are not even providing real statistics. The Secretary of State's announcement is a brazen attempt to massage the figures in order to fool the country. However, we shall ensure that he will not succeed.

Mr. Tebbit: No one, not even Opposition Members, need feel in danger of being fooled by statistics. I did not conceal the details of the changes as they were being considered. I am fulfilling my job by offering more accurate statistics at much less cost. The right hon. Gentleman should bear that in mind. Regional figures will be published today. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman does not wish me to bore the House by reading them now. I hope that in future we can provide much more detailed figures as a result of the improved system.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: I thank the Secretary of State for the explanatory material that he provided to the House. Will he confirm that there is a difference of a quarter of a million between the new figures and the old, as he said, not for one month, but for several months? His Department estimates the number of unregistered unemployed at 300,000, and 360,000 have been removed from the dole queue as a direct result of special employment measures. Yesterday his Minister of State estimated that another 50,000 would be removed from the register as a result of job-splitting measures. Therefore, 1 million people have disappeared from the register and the true unemployment figure is 4 million, or 16 per cent.

Mr. Tebbit: No. The figure has not been 246,000 for some months. The right hon. Lady has misread the figures. On average, during the past 12 months—

Mrs. Williams: I have added them all up for June, July, September and October.

Mr. Tebbit: —the figure for the year has been 170,000 or 190,000. For the summer months, before school leavers are registered for benefit in September, the figure is larger. We shall publish, as an addendum to the figures, the number of school leavers, so the right hon. Lady can add the two together and reach the correct figure.
As to the right hon. Lady's suggestion that there are 4 million unemployed, if she examines the census report—it

is entirely independent and is based upon census officers asking people whether they are employed or unemployed and whether they are seeking work—she will see a close correlation between the figures as published and the census figures. The census figures would not lead one to the conclusion that there were 4 million unemployed, or any other figure that the right hon. Lady chooses to pull out of the air.

Mr. Kenneth Carlisle: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many people will be glad that they do not now have to go to two centres to register for unemployment benefit, and that by going just to one centre, not only will some confusion be stopped, but much time and frustration will be avoided?

Mr. Tebbit: Yes, my hon. Friend is right. It is extremely helpful to people on limited incomes that they do not have the expense of attending more offices than is necessary at a time of considerable hardship for them.

Mr. David Ennals: As we are not far off a general election, is not this decision and its timing designed purely to fool the British public about the size and nature of the massive problem of unemployment with which Britain is faced?

Mr. Tebbit: The right hon. Gentleman was perhaps not quite paying his usual attention to what I told the House. I explained that this decision was taken more than a year ago and that the change was first explained in the Employment Gazette in April last year.

Mr. John Gorst: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Opposition have described as merely cosmetic his announcement of the saving of £10 million on the administration of the scheme? Will he note that any saving of money is apparently cosmetic and electioneering? Will he go back further than 12 months in making a comparison between the position now and in the past?

Mr. Tebbit: I note what my hon. Friend said about the frivolous attitude of Opposition Members to taxpayers' money. I intend that we should publish figures going back perhaps as long as 10 years to ensure that the trend lines can be properly seen and the comparison properly made.

Mr. Ioan Evans: Is the Secretary of State aware that outside the House there will be a widespread feeling that the purpose of his announcement is to camouflage the massive increase in unemployment under this Government? Will he give an assurance that it is not his intention to follow this up by closing the jobcentres? How will those who are unemployed for more than 12 months, who do not go to an unemployment office and who make no claim, enter into the figures? What will the right hon. Gentleman do to include in the figures those married women who at present are not included?

Mr. Tebbit: The hon. Gentleman has accused me of an act of camouflage. When one considers the number of times on which since I became Secretary of State I have notified the change, it appears to be a curious piece of camouflage.
We are considering whether every jobcentre fulfils a proper function and does so effectively, and whether there are better and more effective ways of ensuring that those who are unemployed can have access to the jobcentre service.
There will be no difference for the long-term unemployed. They are still registered at unemployment


benefit offices and will, of course, remain on the register. Were that not the case, the figure would have come down by very much more.

Mr. David Penhaligon: Is the Secretary of State aware that, although the statistics showing the number of people successfully claiming benefit may be of interest to the House, many hon. Members wish the unemployment figures to show the number of unemployed and seeking work? Does he not agree that the new figures are even more inaccurate than the previous ones?

Mr. Tebbit: The hon. Gentleman has to take his pick from a number of statistics, none of which can ever in human life be perfect. It is a great advantage that about 100,000 and more people who are actually at work are no longer to be recorded as being out of work. I am sure that that is good.
The hon. Gentleman referred to those who are not qualified for benefit but who may be seeking work. It depends on how hard they are seeking work—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walker) should let me finish. Some of them may be seeking work by looking in the columns of the press. Some may be going to private sector employment agencies, and some may be going to jobcentres. Since there is no compulsion on them to go to jobcentres—and I am sure that is right—to publish the jobcentre figure would be meaningless.

Mr. Nigel Forman: Will the computerised system enable my right hon. Friend's officials around the country to record a higher proportion of vacancies that exist but which at present are not notified? Will it also bring together more rapidly and clearly job vacancies and those who are genuinely seeking work?

Mr. Tebbit: The answer to my hon. Friend's second question is that it will help, because there will be no requirement for people who do not wish to be served by jobcentres to go to them. Therefore, there will be a better opportunity to serve those who need the service.
In reply to my hon. Friend's first question, I can tell him that the vacancy figures are also now computerised. They show very little change from the traditional method, but we believe they will be more effectively transmitted around the jobcentres as computerisation continues to take place, and therefore a better service will be offered. I hope that all employers who have vacancies will notify them to the jobcentres, because, as my hon. Friend knows, at present only a small proportion of vacancies are notified to the jobcentres and therefore appear in the statistics.

Mr. J. W. Rooker: Will there be a run-in period so that the House can see both the new and the old figures? The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the publication of figures from 10 years back, but I want to know about the future. Will the two figures be published side by side for any time at all, or will the new system be introduced immediately and the old one made null and void from day one? Who will be counted? Will it be those who are receiving benefit because they are unemployed, or will it be those who have made a claim for benefit? As the Secretary of State knows, more than 400,000 of the presently registered 3.3 million

unemployed receive not a penny piece from the State by way of unemployment or supplementary benefit. How will they be counted in the new system?

Mr. Tebbit: The hon. Gentleman will see from the change in the figures that they have not been excluded—

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: Come off it.

Mr. Tebbit: —and it would not conform with the base of the statistics if they were.
The hon. Gentleman has obviously not had an opportunity to read the explanatory memorandum that I placed in the Vote Office or to see the material that was published in April and September in the Employment Gazette, which made the position plain. It is no longer possible to produce statistics on the old basis, because there is no longer a requirement for people to register at a jobcentre. To ensure that there can be a fair comparison, I have for the past 12 months published the figures on both bases.

Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: Do the figures apply to local authority areas, or to travel-to-work areas? Will my right hon. Friend assure the House once again that there can be no question of deception if he is comparing the figures for past years with the immediate future?

Mr. Tebbit: My hon. Friend's second point is correct.
I hope that periodically we will be able to produce new analyses by local authority areas. What is more, we shall be able to get some new series of flows into and out of unemployment, such as by age and by duration of unemployment, which can be dealt with in more detail. For the first time we shall have proper information on completed spells of unemployment. There will be a considerable advantage in terms of the coverage of statistics. However, I have to be fair. One or two statistics will not be available in quite the same form as they have been in the past.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I was going to say that I propose to call those hon. Members who have been rising but there is a large number. If hon. Members are brief, we will see how we get on.

Mr. George Foulkes: Does the Secretary of State realise that his blatant attempt to cook the books will backfire, just like the tax and prices index, which was another attempt to con the public? As unemployment rises inexorably under the Government's economic policies, each unemployed person, whatever the statistics, will know that he is unemployed, especially if the 5 per cent. cut in the benefit continues.

Mr. Tebbit: Of course unemployed people know that they are unemployed. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman raised any other points.

Mr. Foulkes: The right hon. Gentleman was not listening.

Miss Joan Lestor: Bearing in mind my correspondence with the right hon. Gentleman and his Department about the number of women excluded from the figures because of the new way of compiling them, will he now—as he promised in a letter to me—announce the number of women who have been excluded from the figures for this month and who will be excluded in the following months?

Mr. Tebbit: It might be difficult to do that as a separate list, because it is difficult to know how many people are not in the figures in any particular category, but I shall do my best to help the hon. Lady if I can.

Mr. Sydney Bidwell: Is the Secretary of State aware that his statement reminds many of us in the Labour movement of the likeness between statistics and a woman's bikini—what it reveals is interesting, but what it conceals is vital?

Mr. Tebbit: Yes, I think that I have heard that before somewhere.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Since the census, contrary to the Minister's assertion, showed an undercount of about 10 per cent., would it not be wise to experiment, as the Americans have done, with sample censuses in order to buttress the figures?
Secondly, is there not a case for counting the number of people in jobs? The experience of the Labour Government was that there was a rise in unemployment of ¾ million, but a fall of only 20,000 in the number of jobs. Under the Conservative Government there has been a rise in unemployment of 2 million and a consequent loss of 2 million jobs, which is very different.

Mr. Tebbit: I do not think that sample censuses would necessarily produce better figures than we have. I think that under the new arrangements we have a good system for recording people who are registered at benefit offices. The hon. Gentleman must judge the new figures for himself. As I said, they are lower than the old figures. The trend lines and the year-on-year changes are extremely similar. We all know that the change in the base of the figures has not made any difference to the total number of people employed or unemployed.
I, too, would like to get better and more up-to-date figures of the number of people employed. Perhaps we shall be able to find ways to do so.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: Can the Secretary of State tell me how the jobcentre at Kirkby should concentrate on its function, as he described it this afternoon, of matching job seekers and job vacancies, when there are several thousand unemployed and literally no vacancies?

Mr. Tebbit: I do not think it is true that there are "literally no vacancies".

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: Yes—on the right hon. Gentleman's figures.

Mr. Tebbit: The hon. Gentleman must not get it wrong. It is possible that no vacancies may be notified. I should think it unlikely that no vacancies are notified to the Kirkby jobcentre, although I should not want to doubt the hon. Gentleman's word. He will know that many employers do not notify vacancies to the jobcentres, and even in Kirkby people find work.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: Even under a Conservative Government.

Mr. Frank Dobson: Will the Secretary of State accept that because the old figures did not tally with what people observed around them, most people doubted whether his old figures adequately covered the number of people unemployed?
As an example, I draw the Secretary of State's attention to one supplementary benefit office in my constituency,

where the number of unemployed persons has increased from just over 2,000 12 months ago to just under 5,000 now.

Mr. Tebbit: The hon. Gentleman says that most people did not believe the old statistics. I think that most people took them for what they were—a reliable indication of the trend of unemployment. I believe that they will take the new figures as a reliable indication of the trend. They will see that in some ways the new figures measure the actual number of unemployed more effectively than the old figures did. In another way, they exclude some people who were included under the old figures.
I imagine that the hon. Gentleman's figures for the supplementary benefit office in his constituency are right.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) has left the Chamber, because I have just been told that 16 vacancies have been notified at the Kirkby exchange.

Mr. Robert Parry: The Secretary of State's new figures show that the North-West still has one of the highest figures for unemployment outside Northern Ireland. The number of unemployed school leavers in the North-West is higher than anywhere in the United Kingdom. Will the right hon. Gentleman get his priorities right by attacking unemployment instead of indulging in union bashing? Will he ask his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, who has ministerial responsibility for Merseyside, to pull his finger out and stop embarking on cosmetic and Mickey Mouse gimmicks?

Mr. Tebbit: I should not dream of using such vulgar language to anyone, least of all to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.
The Government are trying to combat unemployment. That is why inflation has been brought down. That is why interest rates have been brought down. That is why we have preached moderation in pay settlements—a policy which has been accepted. That is why we have preached good industrial relations—a policy which has been accepted by workers, even if not by all trade union leaders. That is why, when I was in Brussels recently at the jumbo council, together with all the other Employment and Finance Ministers, we agreed on the necessity for broadly similar measures—similar to those being carried out in Britain. We all eschewed crazy reflationary measures of the sort advocated by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: Will the Secretary of State break the new £200 parliamentary question limit and publish what the figure would have been in May 1979 had the new system of calculation been used? When he publishes the back figures for the past 12 months, will he consider publishing them also for each region and for each travel-to-work area?

Mr. Tebbit: I have published today the figures for the past 12 months and, as I said earlier, I hope to publish the figures for a long way back. I do not think that it would be possible to publish figures for every travel-to-work area. That would be an absurd waste of money.

Mr. Giles Radice: As my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lyon) has said that the official census showed that there was an 11 per cent. under-count of unemployment figures calculated on the


old basis, will the Secretary of State confirm that this afternoon he has managed to reduce unemployment by 500,000?

Mr. Tebbit: I do not think that I would agree to that. The hon. Gentleman may have got some of the figures a little wrong. The census of population for April 1981—the last accurate figures that we have of this sort—showed a total number of unemployed of 2,496,000. Under the old basis of registration the figure was 2,426,000. On the new basis for claimants the figure is 2,279,000. In each case slightly different definitions of unemployment were measured. It should be clear that the talk of 4 million unemployed is rather ridiculous.

Round Oak Steelworks

Mr. Speaker: I have received notice of two applications under Standing Order No. 9. I shall call them in the order in which they were received.

Mr. John G. Blackburn: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely
the proposed closure of the Round Oak steelworks at Brierley Hill.
I am sure that the urgency of the matter is recognised on each side of the House. It is a specific matter and it is vitally important.
The Round Oak steelworks has been producing high quality steel for the past 125 years. The operation was undertaken in the private sector of the steel industry and assurances were given that the works would form a vital part of Phoenix II in the private sector. It was on this covenant that the works was taken into the care of the newly formed Brierley Hill Investment Company, which is almost wholly owned by the British Steel Corporation.
One year ago, this company, which has suffered heavy redundancies involving the loss of over 2,000 men, was profitable. Over the past few months, the position has rapidly deteriorated and, under BSC control, heavy debts have occurred. Three years ago, over £8 million was spent on a modernisation programme for the plant. It is known that the product is excellent and the management first class and that the unions have behaved in the most responsible manner. They deserve, and receive, my warm congratulations.
I associate myself with the view that if the heavy debt was placed against BSC, where it originated, a most attractive steel plant could be offered in the private sector. This company holds the Queen's award for export in the steel industry. It is a matter of great concern to me that the first intimation that I received of its closure was a telephone message at 2 o'clock yesterday in my office in the House. In my judgment, there has been no consultation.
In view of the circumstances surrounding this, there are three avenues yet to be explored before the decision for closure is taken.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have been very generous to the hon. Gentleman in allowing him to make comments that he should make only if I grant him the application. I hope he will confine himself to justifying to me the reason that an emergency debate should be granted.

Mr. Stanley Orme: So that he can make these points.

Mr. Blackburn: The steel works can aptly be described as the jewel in the industrial crown of the West Midlands, which has many metal-based industries. On behalf of the people whom I have the honour to represent, I seek the time of the House to discuss this specific, important and urgent matter, and submit my application to you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Orme: Well done.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Dudley, West (Mr. Blackburn) gave me notice before 12 o'clock midday


that he would seek leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he thinks should have urgent consideration, namely,
the proposed closure of Round Oak steelworks at Brierley Hill.
I think that the House understood that I was seeking not to put the hon. Gentleman off his argument but to bring him on to the right course for me to be able to judge what he had to say. The hon. Gentleman has drawn our attention to a grievous matter, and one that is of great concern to hon. Members on both sides of the House and in the Midlands.
The House knows that under Standing Order No. 9 I am instructed to take into account the several factors set out in the order but to give no reasons for my decision.
I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman's representations, which were serious, but I have to rule that his submission does not fall within the provisions of the Standing Order and, therefore, I cannot submit his application to the House.
Later—

Mr. Orme: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Member for Dudley, West (Mr. Blackburn) previously made an application under Standing Order No. 9 about steel and the crisis in the West Midlands. Are you aware, Mr. Speaker, of any statement that may be made on steel either tomorrow or on Monday? I see that the Patronage Secretary is in his place. The House should have some advance knowledge of this.
I understand, Mr. Speaker, why, for your own reasons, you have not accepted the application under Standing Order No. 9. However, this is a matter affecting thousands of jobs in the steel industry. Have you any advance information about the matter?

Mr. Speaker: I listened carefully to the Leader of the House, who indicated—I think that he said so in so many words—that his right hon. Friend the Minister would make a statement. That is what I gathered from what he had to say. I have no views on the matter at this stage.

Tadworth Hospital

Mr. Mike Thomas: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
the proposed closure of the Tadworth hospital.
The matter is specific. This is a 60-bed hospital catering for mentally and physically severely handicapped children, and giving respite to the parents of such children when they wish to go on holiday or to be temporarily relieved of responsibility for their children.
The matter is important not merely because of the facilities provided at Tadworth, but because of the implications that the decision has for the Government's overall approach to the Health Service and for the rest of the regional health authority that covers Tadworth.
The Prime Minister's statement today adds further urgency to our need to consider this matter. She said that Ministers were considering the matter, and I think used the word "sympathetic". There are two grave consequences in reconsidering this decision if it is done in a particular fashion. One is that the Government might choose, privately, without the knowledge of the House or without any discussion, to take away with one hand what they are giving with the other. The concern was expressed last night that the decision might be taken in such a way as gravely to damage the facilities at Great Ormond Street and at the Queen Elizabeth hospital.
There is also clear evidence that there are implications for the role of charities. It may be that the Government, without coming to the House to discuss the matter, are starting to take the view that this type of facility should be provided by charity. That is an important matter, contingent on this decision, that ought to have the consideration of the House.
The Secretary of State should have come to the House today and made a statement following the decision of the governors of the hospital last night. Tomorrow would be a good time to discuss these matters. There is no need for them to be decided in private and behind closed doors. There is no need for horse trading on which facilities are to close, without the involvement of the House or of hon. Members who are generally or particularly involved. The issue should be discussed here. Hon. Members have had no opportunity to do that so far. I seek leave to move the Adjournment of the House to discuss the matter at a more convenient time tomorrow, so that we may do so before the Government decision is taken.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East (Mr. Thomas) gave me notice before 12 o'clock midday that he would seek leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he thinks should have urgent consideration, namely,
the proposed closure of the Tadworth hospital.
In the knowledge that the hon. Gentleman was to make his application, I listened with particular care to the exchanges this afternoon between the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister. The hon. Gentleman


will know, as the House knows, that I am instructed to take into account the several factors set out in Standing Order No. 9 but to give no reason for my decision.
I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman, as did the House, but I have to rule that his submission does not fall withing the provisions of the Standing Order and, therefore, I cannot submit his application to the House.

Agricultural Marketing Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Peter Walker.

Mr. Mark Hughes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Before the right hon. Gentleman speaks, may I draw the attention of the House to one small difficulty? A major part of the Bill deals with the repeal of parts of the Agriculture Act 1967. When I went to the Vote Office on Monday I was unable to obtain a copy of that Act, because it is out of print. Can you advise me how the House can proceed when hon. Members cannot have a copy of an essential part of the measure that we are about to consider?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that we had better wait to hear what the Minister has to say. He may be able to clear up the matter.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Peter Walker): I received no request from the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes). Copies of the Act are available in the Library and in the Ministry, and I am sorry that at the last moment the hon. Gentleman has decided to raise this point as a personal difficulty. We have received no similar application from any other hon. Member, saying that he is in difficulties.

Mr. Bob Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You said that you would hear what the Minister had to say. I was not aware of the unavailability of the Act. However, it is not good enough for the Minister to say that no hon. Member has applied to his Department for information. When new primary legislation significantly affects previous primary legislation, it is necessary for the previous legislation to be available. I am struck by the contrast between the way in which the Minister treats the House in this offhand fashion and—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes), who raised the point of order, said that he had gone to the Vote Office on Monday. I do not know whether he has made any similar requests since then. I would not know whether the document is available.

Mr. Peter Walker: I have checked, and copies of the appropriate part of the Act have been photocopied and are available in the Vote Office.

Mr. Speaker: That settles that.

Mr. Peter Walker: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I hope that the Bill will be supported by both sides of the House. The proposals are welcomed by all sections of the agriculture and food industries. We have the advantage of an agriculture industry which, one can argue, in terms of productivity, production, inventiveness and innovation, compares favourably with the agricultural sector of any of our major competitors. We also have a food manufacturing industry with a world-wide reputation and a remarkable national and international record. Our retailing organisation for food compares in efficiency and effectiveness with any in the world.
The Bill has an impact on the whole food chain. It is not designed specifically for agriculture, the farmer or the


horticulturist. The food manufacturing industry, processors and retailers will all be affected by the Bill's provisions.
The reason I welcome this opportunity to move the Bill's Second Reading is that over the last three and a half years that I have been responsible for the Ministry, my analysis has been that we compare favourably in production, innovation and research with our competitors. For historic reasons, however, I believe it is true that some of our competitors have been superior in their marketing performance.
This country has long been a major food importing country, whereas countries such as France, Denmark and Holland have had to export a substantial part of their food production for their national survival. They have had to become experts in marketing, not only in their domestic markets, but on a world-wide scale. In this country, with its enormous domestic market compared with our home food production, there has not been the same pressure.
I made the analysis, correctly or incorrectly, that the greatest scope for progress over the next 10 to 20 years lay in an improvement of our marketing performance. Late in 1979, or early 1980, I asked five individuals to assist the Ministry and the Government by examining the problems of marketing British agriculture and food products. To some extent, they were unique appointments. They were not appointed as a committee. They were given no terms of reference. I asked them to examine any sphere of agriculture and food marketing that they wished and told them that I would endeavour to provide any background information and to arrange any introductions to sections of the industry that they required. They were to be free to say publicly at any time what they wished on any topic. They would be able to confer privately with me about their ideas and views. They were to be five individuals with total freedom over the conduct of their inquiries and their dialogue with the British industry.
I express my gratitude to those individuals. All are busy people in their own right. Dennis Stevenson has done a great deal of public service. When I was Secretary of State for the Environment I asked him to take on the difficult task of chairman of Peterlee and Aycliffe new town. I gather from hon. Members representing Durham that they greatly admire the efforts that he applied to that task. His impact on the marketing exercise has been considerable.
Sir John Sainsbury is well known as one of our most successful food retailers. He has a major business of enormous dimension, but has nevertheless given a great deal of his time and attention to assist in the marketing task. John Cross is a distinguished farmer and well known in the agricultural co-operative movement. Detta O'Cathain, who has become a member of the staff of the Milk Marketing Board, was originally employed by one of the major private enterprise concerns in the food industry. Ann Burdus was head of one of our major advertising agencies and has recently been replaced among the advisers by Robin Wight. All those people have devoted a great deal of effort and have travelled at home and abroad to fulfil the task that I gave them. They have received no financial reward for their activities. Many results have flowed from their ideas and suggestions following the genuine dialogue that occurred with all those they met.
One of their early conclusions was that Britain was at a disadvantage compared with some foreign competitors

in having no organisation that had the power of coordinating marketing efforts at home and abroad for British food products. They saw the French benefiting by the activities of SOPEXA, the Germans by the activities of CMA and the Danes and the Dutch with similar organisations, and also the Italians with their trade centres concentrating on food and wine products. They saw the gap that needed to be filled if we were to make a full impact.
A great deal of activity and change has already produced benefits for the whole economy. During the last three to four years the proportion of our domestic market taken by British temperate food products has increased to such a degree that the balance of payments this year will show a £1 billion improvement over the figure that would have resulted from retaining the old proportion of our domestic food market. On the overseas side, the volume of our exports has increased since 1979 to such a degree that I expect our exports of foodstuffs this year will be £650 million higher than three years ago. Those two factors alone mean an improvement in 1982 of £1,650 million in our balance of payments, better export penetration and a bigger share of our home market.
There has been the successful launching of Kingdom apples and a big counter-attack on what had become a diminishing market. This year there will be Charter bacon. At long last our bacon processing industry is to introduce quality control, which means that we can compete with our main competitors. In the few places where it can be obtained, there will also be a new English cheese.
A great deal is happening in other sectors of the industry. I wish to stress, however, the considerable potential that remains. This year we shall probably import £3¼ billion worth of temperate foodstuffs that we could produce ourselves. There is still a great area for successful import substitution. The other countries of the European Community import £17 billion worth a year of foodstuffs of the type that we can produce. Of that amount, only £1 billion worth comes from the United Kingdom. Of the total imports within the Community from other Community countries of foodstuffs of the type that we can produce, only 5 per cent. come from the United Kingdom.
When one realises that Denmark exports 80 per cent. of its food production, France 35 per cent., and the United Kingdom only 25 per cent., one realises the great potential. The Community as a whole exports £400 million of foodstuffs to the United States, of which only £40 million is from the United Kingdom. We know the advantages to the United Kingdom of North Sea oil, but we should always remember that the time will come—
in the not-too-distant future—when that oil will run out, while British agriculture, horticulture and food manufacturers will remain a major and permanent part of our economy.
As a result of views that were expressed by my "Marketeers" and by the industry, and of the dialogue that took place, in which the NFL and the British Food Export Council played an important part, it became clear that we needed a new council. We had the important activity, which the Bill retains and provides for, of the Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation. Several right hon. and hon. Members who are here today will know from their constituency experience how co-operatives in horticulture and agriculture have greatly benefited from the activities of that council, and its work is to continue. Indeed, those whom I have provisionally


asked to stand by to be members of the governing board of the new organisation, Food from Britain, want the central council to operate under a separate board with a separate chairman, and the £1½ million a year that is currently allocated, together with £3 million in grants, will continue under the Bill. My dedication to their activities is best expressed by the fact that I have asked the current chairman of the central council to become the chairman of Food from Britain.
I express my gratitude and thanks to Nicholas Saphir for the remarkable job that he has done for the central council and for his willingness and agreement to take on this task. He is young by the normal standard of these appointments, and he is involved in his own business career, but I know that his personal dedication, ability and knowledge of the markets are such that he has the confidence of all parts of the industry. Incidentally, when I appointed him as chairman of the central council I received a telegram from an NFU branch calling for his immediate resignation because he was not a farmer. I am pleased to say that that branch has since stated that it no longer wants his resignation, because it admires his ability and talent, and I have no doubt that he will give considerable leadership to the new organisation.
We need the new body for several reasons. First, there is nothing in this country to co-ordinate the market research that is required for major sections of the industry. Undoubtedly it will carry out research programmes. Also, there is a need to co-ordinate sales campaigns at home and abroad, and to provide appropriate publicity material. Then there is the gathering together of producers, manufacturers and processors to embark jointly on advertising campaigns in all forms of the media, and the organisation on a substantial scale of inward missions of people who are buying from overseas—retailers and purchasers from the whole world as well as from Europe.
Organisations abroad have succeeded in carrying out a range of activities. We are one of the last of the major food producer countries to get organised in this sphere. In France there is SOPEXA, with a substantial income, of which 70 per cent. comes from Government grants. The latest figures from one Government organisation show that last year the French Government put up about £9 million. The organisation in Germany was financed for the first five years by the Government, and is now financed by levies on the industry. The Danes, the Dutch and the Italians have a diversity of organisations, all of which receive Government aid and are helped to carry out their operations, many of which of course are in this country.

Mr. Robert Maclennan: Is the Minister satisfied that the extent of Government involvement in the financing of SOPEXA does not amount to national aid which is distorting intra-Community trade, particularly in horticulture?

Mr. Walker: We see the necessity of providing Government aid in all these spheres, to get the new organisation going. It could not start without an injection of Government money. The majority of the £14 million aid that I intend to give over five years will be in the early years, and my intention is that the industry will gradually take over the financing of it. Part of SOPEXA is financed by the French industry. As I said, the latest figures showed a Government grant of £9 million. The size of that grant,

bearing in mind the size of the French food industry, is not so great as to make it an important or serious national aid. Clearly, if a Government were putting in hundreds of millions of pounds, thus subsidising foodstuffs, and so on, that would be against the terms of the treaty. Over the years the Commission has decided that the money put into SOPEXA by the French and the money put in for five years by the Germans has been acceptable within the treaty.
In deciding the composition of the membership of Food from Britain, I hope that the House will support me in ensuring that it is not an organisation in which any body or group of people, as of right, has a nomination on it. It would be easy to say that everyone should be represented—the NFU, the Welsh farmers union, the Northern Ireland NFU, the country landowners, and the food manufacturers. It would be a long list, including people from the Consumers Association, someone representing retailers, and so on. One would end by having a vast body of people whose main task would be to put forward their own views. I chose people purely because of their individual wisdom, ability and talents. I made it clear to bodies such as the NFU and others that they would not have nominees, as of right, in such an organisation.
I hope that the House will allow the organisation to operate on that basis and then judge it by the quality of its work. I am delighted with those whom I asked to put their names forward. Their ability, talent, wisdom and knowledge are considerable, and the discussions that I know they have already had have not been on the basis of defending their own sector, experience or vested interest, but of considering what is necessary to make the organisation a considerable success.

Mr. John Carlisle: Will my right hon. Friend elucidate the position of those whom he has appointed before the Bill is enacted? How many people has he in mind at this stage to steer the Bill through the House, and for how long, after the law becomes an Act, will they be in office?

Mr. Walker: The number is 13. It will be seen from the Bill that they will have wide powers. I do not want the body to be run indirectly by civil servants in my Ministry. I want those appointed to get on with the job as best they see it, because I believe that they have the wisdom and knowledge to do that. They will have powers to co-opt for any particular work, to set up committees and to seek advice of other people. It will be a body of tolerable size and I envisage initial two or three-year appointments. On that basis, we shall have initial stability and a group of talented people to get the organisation under way.
The first thing that I wanted to ensure was that the organisation was properly financed. If it had been launched on a minute sum of money it would probably have been amateurish. I have made it clear that there will be £14 million available over five years and I expect that the bulk of that will be spent in the early years. As the work of the council gets under way it will start obtaining revenue from the industry and those who benefit from its services.
I envisage that the Government will put in most of the finance in the first year, somewhat less in the second year and much less in the third year. By the end of the five years, the organisation should be self-financing from donations and contributions from the industry. If it is a failure, the money will not be coming in from outside. The


organisation will be run-down and ineffective. The manufacturing industry and the main marketing boards want it to be a success and I have no doubt that it will be. If it is, it will be able to obtain appropriate financing for future years.
The Bill establishes a central marketing organisation for agriculture and food, to be known as Food from Britain. Clause 1 and schedule 1 set up Food from Britain and give it a council of 13 to 15 members, who will be appointed by agriculture Ministers, having regard to all sectors of the industry concerned throughout the United Kingdom.
Clause 2 transfers to Food from Britain the functions of the Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation, which are to improve and develop co-operation. The clause also gives Food from Britain power to co-ordinate and develop marketing in the widest sense in agriculture, horticulture, fish—other than fresh sea fish, which is dealt with by the White Fish Authority—and food produce. Powers are deliberately given wide definition so that Food from Britain has maximum scope to develop and implement a flexible strategy.
Clause 3 and schedule 2 provide for the dissolution of the central council and for the transfer of all its rights, obligations and property to Food from Britain.
Clause 4 reflects the intention that Food from Britain should, after a period of Government funding, obtain the finance for its marketing functions entirely on a voluntary basis from the industry. The clause enables statutory bodies in agriculture to contribute towards the cost of the marketing activities of Food from Britain if they wish. That involves widening the present functions of the statutory bodies to include such voluntary contributions.
Clause 5 lays down the standard requirements for the production and auditing of an annual statement of accounts and for their presentation to Parliament by Agriculture Ministers.
Clause 6 empowers Food from Britain to borrow temporarily up to £500,000. The provision is intended to cover only temporary cash flow problems. The clause also enables Food from Britain to make grants or loans.
Clause 7 will enable Ministers to make grants to Food from Britain. The Government's intention is to provide pump-priming funds for the first five years for the organisation's activities, in addition to the present Government support of £1½ million a year to the central council for its co-operative development functions, excluding grants. The Government will provide up to £14 million over the five years—1983–84 to 1987–88—for the marketing activities of Food from Britain.
The funding by the Government of co-operative functions remains as provided for in section 58(9) of the Agriculture Act 1967. Clause 7 also enables Ministers to lend to Food from Britain and to remunerate the members of its council.
Clause 8 deals with the interpretation of various terms used in the Bill and clause 9 names the Bill, provides for it to cover Northern Ireland and for repeals, which are mainly consequential, on the transformation of the central council. The clause also provides for the coming into force of the Bill by statutory instrument. It is intended to do that two weeks after the Bill receives Royal Assent, in order to set Food from Britain in full operation as soon as possible.
I hope that the Bill will have support not only from all sections of the industry, but from all parts of the House. I think that we all agree that in our agriculture, horticulture

and food industries we have a uniquely effective area of potential economic expansion and growth in a world in which such expansion and growth are difficult to achieve.
I hope that the House will co-operate in seeing that the Bill reaches the statute book as speedily as possible. It will make an important contribution and perhaps at the end of the decade we shall be able to say that we started it with production and research that was as good as any in the world and ended it with marketing that was also as good as any in the world.

Mr. Mark Hughes: I echo the Minister's comments about his specialist advisers. I know two of them—Ann Burdus, who was my dentist's wife, and whom I therefore treat with great care, and Dennis Stevenson, whom I knew while he was chairman of the Peterlee and Aycliffe new town corporation. They have served this country and agricultural interests very well.
I have been a Member for only twelve and a half years, but I have always believed that it was the custom and practice to announce the membership of a statutory body only after the House had given a Second Reading to the Bill establishing that body. Announcing not only the chairman-designate but the whole membership on 7 June, when the Second Reading of the Bill is not due until late November, appears to be somewhat discourteous to the opinion of the House. It precludes, or appears to preclude, the possibility that the House might not agree with the details of the new organisation, the form that it is to take or the powers to be given to it.
I have no objection in principle or ad hominem to any one of the names announced by the Minister in June, but it is taking the House for granted for us to be told the membership when after this debate we shall have to pass the money resolution to set up Food from Britain and give it statutory powers. If a money resolution means anything, surely it means that a body corporate does not exist until the House has passed that resolution. That is what we shall be voting on later.
In my time the normal practice has been to announce the chairman-designate and so forth after Second Reacting. I would have no objection to that. If, as a result of requests from the Scottish Farmers Union or other bodies, there is a suggestion in Committee that in future it should not be the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food who determines the membership but that it should be determined according to interest, an amendment cannot easily be moved in Committee because the membership has already been nominated and therefore it would seem to be an attack upon the persons involved.
I do not object to the gentlemen in question. The deputy chairman, Mr. Cargill, is a man of the highest calibre, a supreme example of Scottish farmers, against whom I have no objection—quite the reverse. If anything untoward happened to him there will be no guarantee under the Bill that any Scottish farming interest is preserved on Food from Britain in future. Under the previous legislation the Scottish NFU had that right. If the same applied to a Welsh member, that right would be automatic under the previous legislation. I shall not say a word against the worthiness of the individuals ad hominem.
In Committee we will wish to ensure that the House has the power to change that position. By his press statement on 7 June the Minister has put hon. Members in the


difficulty that we might appear to have objections to the persons, although we do not. We must move away from such objections to the need to ensure that they are representatives of bodies rather than the creatures, however exquisite, of a Minister.
Before a Second Reading is given to the Bill, may we be assured that so far not one penny piece of public money has been spent upon activities related to Food from Britain? If it has, what is the purpose of the money resolution that is to be debated next? It is then and only then that the House can permit the expenditure of money on a body corporate to be known as Food from Britain.
Therefore, I ask for a formal assurance that can be put to the Public Accounts Committee that under no circumstances have any
allowance, remuneration and pensions, or such sums for the provision of pensions, to or in respect of any member of Food from Britain, and such sums to a person on his ceasing to be a member of Food from Britain
been allocated to this date.
Can I and the House be certain that not one part of one hour has been spent by those employed under statute on the Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Cooperation upon a body before the House has given its approval to the money resolution? If not, I shall seek to raise the matter with the Public Accounts Committee.
If a Minister chooses a press release as the means to set up a body, and five months later seeks parliamentary approval of its membership and powers, and has then to have a money resolution to provide the money for the board to do its job, it is proper for the House to inquire whether in the interim any activity at all has been paid for with public money.

Mr. Maclennan: As a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I am interested in the point that the hon. Gentleman has made, although he has taken 10 minutes to make it. Has he any evidence to suggest that the Minister has behaved in a way which would be completely unacceptable?

Mr. Hughes: I have no evidence. I am asking for it.
The annual report for 1981–82 of the Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation, outlines the grants for livestock and product marketing campaigns. Grampian Pig Producers received a grant of £16,372, the CCAHC contribution to which was £6,196. It continues:
Identification of Grampian Pig Producers' originated pork by means of pack stickers. Total cost £4,135, CCAHC contribution £2,067.
Over the page one sees details of potato product marketing campaigns:
Saphir Potatoes Family Farm Federal. To promote ware potatoes to wholesalers … Total cost £16,150, CCAHC contribution £8,075.
I preclude the possibility of improper conduct, but it is curious that the chairman and vice-chairman of Food from Britain will have a controlling interest in the recipients of those grants. I ask only whether it is in the public interest that the chairman and vice-chairman should be associated with companies which are the recipients of grants of that order and which are under their control. I am not suggesting for a moment that anything improper has occurred.

Mr. Geraint Howells: With respect, the hon. Gentleman has baffled the majority of hon. Members by his remarks. What is he trying to prove to the House this afternoon?

Mr. Hughes: I am trying to suggest that if one leaves the membership of the board to the totally free discretion of the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, it will always be open to hon. Members and other people to query the validity of and qualifications for that membership. However, under the previous regulations and the previous Act, the Minister could not determine that. Therefore, in Committee we shall table an amendment to make certain that the future membership of the board, as of the previous board—

Mr. John Major: We do not want formal committees.

Mr. Hughes: The hon. Gentleman does not like committees. Fair enough. He does not want representatives of the co-operative associations on the board. Is that what the Minister is saying? If he is saying that he wishes to exclude representatives of the co-operative associations from the new body, that is all right. We shall know what he is saying. In Committee, we shall seek to reintroduce that provision. Persons should represent bodies rather than acquaintanceship with a Minister, which we find distasteful.
It is objectionable that not one member of the National Farmers Union is included by right and statute on the new body. Not one Scottish farmer and not one Northern Ireland farmer by statute is included. That is part of the problem. Not one member of the co-operative associations is included by statute. That is our primary objection.
Secondly, we fear that because the co-operative activities of Food from Britain are not included in the Bill they may be forgotten. In Committee we wish to reintroduce the necessary pressure on that body to improve co-operation. We want to bring the clauses of the Agriculture Act 1967 back to the forefront rather than leave them as a residue, which is what the Minister appears to want to do, despite his kind words.
Therefore, we do not wish to vote against the Bill, because we are in favour of improving the selling of British produce. There are major problems and there is major disquiet. However, I trust that my right and hon. Friends will allow the Bill a Second Reading so that we can consider it in more detail in Committee.

Sir Peter Mills: I welcome the chance to speak in this important debate. I shall not attempt to follow the points made by the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes) because I was a little confused by what he was trying to say. I hoped that he would turn his attention to the contents of the Bill. It is important that we should hear the views of the official Opposition, and perhaps we shall hear them in the wind-up speech.
The Bill will be particularly important for the area from which I come—the South-West—because it is one of the largest food-producing areas in the country. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on bringing forward the Bill. It has taken a long time and many consultations to get it going. However, I believe that it has the good wishes of the agricultural


community and of most of the food industry. Therefore, I congratulate my right hon. Friend on this major step forward.
The Bill deals with marketing. This is not a party political point. I hope that I shall be helped when the Opposition spokesman winds up the debate. I have studied carefully the Socialist document "A New Direction for British Agriculture."
There is virtually nothing in it about marketing. That is sad because the Government have not only dealt with the production of food, but are now seeking to deal with the marketing of food. I should like to hear the Opposition's views on that aspect and why it is left out of that important document.
There was an extraordinary Social Democratic Party conference recently at Taunton. Nothing was said about marketing, but this was said about meat:
We believe that if people eat less meat there will be less pressure on the environment.
That is interesting. However, it is important that the SDP should have a policy on marketing.
I am pleased that a representative of the Liberal Party, the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells), is in the Chamber. The five or six points for agriculture and food in the Liberal programme are clearly set out and are good. I support many of them because they fall exactly into line with what my right hon. Friend has been doing. However, no mention is made of marketing. It is important for farmers, particularly in the South-West, to know the policy of the Social Democrats, the Liberals and Labour on marketing. That is an oversight. Those parties have forgotten marketing. Perhaps the Bill will remind them of its importance.

Mr. Stanley Newens: I think that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation was set up by a Labour Government and that throughout the years the Labour Party has supported the objective of improving marketing in that industry. The hon. Gentleman should not endeavour to strain the point that he is making. He should recognise our concern.

Sir Peter Mills: In the past, Socialist Governments were concerned about marketing. The document "A New Direction for British Agriculture" does not say anything about marketing. At the end of the debate we might hear the views of the official Opposition. I think that is a fair point to make.
Agricultural production last year was first-class. The farmers were fortunate with the weather, and my right hon. Friend gave them every encouragement. Productivity is good. The work force is good, flexible and helpful in every way. However, when it comes to marketing, there are exceptions. British agriculture fails in that respect. Some farmers—not all—think that they have only to produce the food and that they can leave others to market it. Such an attitude cannot continue in this difficult and busy world. In the harsh and competitive world in which we live we must take marketing seriously. That is why I welcome the Government's initiative.
I have had experience of marketing and co-operation in France. Other countries in the Community are ahead of us. We need to make improvements. Too often we are inclined to leave that to others. That cannot continue. The Bill is a step in the right direction.
Another reason why we should get our marketing policy right is the power of the multiple retailers, who are demanding more—rightly so, because the consumer requires more. Therefore, we must get our marketing policy right.
There is a role for the co-ops to play. I hope that this proposal does not mean any weakening in the Government's intention to back the agricultural co-operative movements. There is a role for private industry and the co-operative movement in agriculture.
Marketing must be improved because of consumer demand. The consumer is the most important person, and we must produce what he or she requires. When I started farming people would say "Us likes to produce what us likes." That has finished. We must have first-class marketing and presentation.
Unless marketing is properly organised, we shall have to deal with second-grade produce. It is not possible to have only top-class produce. Exporting countries—Denmark, New Zealand and, to a certain extent, France—know how to deal with second-grade produce. They export only their finest and best. I see that the council will have a role in ensuring that only top quality produce is exported and displayed at various European food fairs.
Clause 2 deals with activities to co-ordinate the marketing of agricultural produce. Does that mean that that body could have a financial role in dealing with the problems of meat plants where rationalisation is needed? A lead needs to be given if we are to market our meat and bacon products properly in future.
Clause 3(2) provides for the dissolution of the Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation. I hope that there is no weakening of the Government's interest in the co-operative movement. On the surface it appears that might be the case, but I do not believe that to be true.

Mr. Peter Walker: I assure my hon. Friend that there is no weakening in that respect. We have categorically stated that the financing of that activity will be retained in real terms for the next five years.

Sir Peter Mills: That is the welcome news that I wanted to hear, and it comes straight from the horse's mouth.
Clause 6 provides that
Food from Britain may with the consent of the Ministers
make grants or loans for marketing purposes only, not for co-operation. It is important that we understand what aid can be given for marketing and for what types of food production.
I am connected with the Milk Marketing Board and many dairy farmers. I hope that the promotion and marketing of margarine will not be helped. I believe that the public are deceived by many margarine advertisements which feature pictures of cows and rural scenes.
Unfortunately, butter consumption is decreasing. Butter does not do any harm. We should take no notice of the doctors. I have lived on butter and Devonshire cream for years, and I am as fit as a fiddle. I shall continue for the rest of my days never to eat margarine, because I believe that butter and Devonshire cream are much better.
I believe that there should be some control to ensure that the proposed body does not help to promote the production of produce that does not stem directly from British agriculture. How many members of the public or


hon. Members know what certain brands of margarine contain? It is horrible. I am exaggerating slightly, but that needs to be watched. One should seek to promote, market and spend money only on British products. I am a great fan of British agriculture. I believe that we should market—and eat—British products at home and abroad. I believe that the Bill will go a long way in helping to do that. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on introducing the Bill.

Mr. Geraint Howells: I am grateful for having been called early in this important debate. I declare my interest as a farmer. It is an encouraging sign for agriculture that a Government have for once given priority in the parliamentary calendar to a Bill that can only, if its aims are fulfilled, improve farming. I congratulate the Minister on his efforts on behalf of an industry that has too often been relegated to the background.
I do not believe that the official Opposition have risen to the occasion as they should have done, by not supporting the Government and in turn supporting agriculture. I have emphasised on many occasions in the House that agriculture is the most efficient industry in Great Britain. Agriculture and horticulture make up the country's biggest industry. It employs over 600,000 people and provides over 60 per cent. of all food eaten in this country and 75 per cent. of the food that can be grown in a climate like ours.
Within the EC there are 3 million farmers producing food for 300 million people. Each farmer has to provide food for 100 people. Every endeavour must be made to help marketing in this country and within the EC. There has been a steady growth in productivity for many years of about 4 per cent. per annum. That excellent record has enabled farmers to make a valuable contribution to the national economy, because of the savings made to the United Kingdom balance of payments.
However, competition from European countries increases every year. We have all watched with admiration, and some anxiety, the aggressive and effective marketing of products from Europe. French and German agriculture have benefited greatly from schemes and promotional organisations that have been heavily funded by their Governments. The way to counter that is not, as some defeatists would have it, to erect protective barriers against imports, but to launch an effective counter-attack. I see the Bill and the setting up of the new organisation Food from Britain as one step in the right direction. I also welcome the fact that the functions of the Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation will be taken over and developed in the new arrangements, as over the years the council has had a beneficial influence on the work of co-operatives.
I am well aware, for example, of the good work done in Wales by the Welsh Agricultural Organisation Society, which has been functioning since 1922, and since the CCAHC was set up in 1967 it has acted as its agent in Wales. It has used funds from that agency to promote and develop co-operative marketing, and an excellent example of that is the system of livestock groups in each county in Wales, marketing centrally through Welsh Quality Lambs

Ltd. That has worked so well that it has become a model for other schemes and I understand that a Scottish scheme, along the lines pioneered in Wales, is being set up.
The total combined turnover of the Welsh agriculture co-operatives is now well in excess of the £100 million reported in 1981, with the total number of those directly employed within the co-operatives in the region of 1,000. A similar number derive employment as a direct result of the existence of that co-operative network.
Such effort, exemplified in the work of the WAOS, will, I hope, continue to receive full encouragement under the new arrangements, as it has already gone part of the way towards meeting the Bill's objectives in encouraging producers to become more effective in marketing and persuading them of the value of becoming active participants in the promotion and marketing of agricultural products at the consumer end of the marketing chain. Therefore, I trust that there will always be adequate funding for co-operative ventures as a vital part of British agriculture.
I am sure that the Minister will agree that we should pay tribute not only to the WAOS and the equivalent bodies in Scotland and other parts of England, but to those who operate the livestock and auction systems in this country. They are also doing excellent work. As long as the livestock sector and the auction system are working in harmony with the WAOS and other organisations, the agriculture industry is assured of a bright future.
As I would have expected, there has been a general welcome from the farming unions for the Bill and its provisions. I hope that the farmers will now take advantage of the help offered and at the same time become more sensitive to the needs of the consumer, both at home and abroad, as that is an essential element in any marketing effort.
If Food from Britain fulfils its promise to enlarge the markets for British products and to bring about the cohesion of marketing efforts, it will be beneficial to the industry and to the country as a whole. I look forward to the day when food from Europe will be our main marketing ambition. We may then be able to dispose more effectively of our food surpluses within the Community. On behalf of the Liberal Party, I wish the Bill and the Minister's deliberations well.

Mr. Colin Shepherd: I am glad to have an opportunity to add my two bits' worth to this important debate on a Bill that is the start of a success story. Since success breeds success, the Bill is also a reflection of the work done by my right hon. Friend the Minister and his team at the Ministry. In this Parliament, the most outstanding success has been the change in the fundamental attitudes dominating agriculture. I sometimes wish that that change would permeate the rest of British industry. However, a start has been made. The agriculture industry has led the way and the Minister is responsible for that.
When I first came to the House I was amazed by the rather comfortable approach of the agriculture industry. I was often told "Tell us what is wanted and we will grow it." It was expected that the Government would say what was wanted. In the previous Parliament the Government were obviously more interested in other things and agriculture's welfare was not at the top of the list. The cry then changed to "Do the Government want an agriculture


industry, an apple industry or a sugar beet industry?" It was a whinge. The answer had to be "Not really, because a cheap food policy must mean purchase from wheresoever, at the lowest possible price, and to blazes with tomorrow or the longer term."
I come from industry, where a market has to be found, developed and retained against ever more intense competition, and I know that we must recognise that we have to defeat competition not only today but day after day, month after month and year after year as that competition responds to initiative. The comfortableness of that first statement, which sticks in my mind, was mind-bending, It was curious that people should have looked to the Government. However, further investigation showed it to be a request conditioned by the managed market and the cosy protectionism and paternalism of the post-war period, when United Kingdom agriculture was only a topping-up industry for the high percentage of imported foodstuffs. My right hon. Friend the Minister has demonstrated our agriculture's success in changing in the past few years. We are now about 75 per cent. self-sufficient in temperate foodstuffs and that is a remarkable track record, which should be recognised by the House.
In the intervening period it became clear that United Kingdom agricultural thinking had not caught up with the growth in technical ability and with political change. The change in the balance of trade contribution by the industry in the past five years of £1,000 million per year is not to be decried. The Bill points the way to the jackpot. I was glad that my figures tuned in with the Minister's. The fact that about £3,250 million has yet to be achieved gives us a target to aim for. It does not even take into account the additional export opportunities.
We face an immense challenge. However, if a £1 billion contribution can be achieved with a fundamentally negative attitude, what may not be achieved with a positive attitude? The Bill sets out to change the scene of British agriculture so that a positive attitude permeates the industry. Food from Britain has an enormous contribution to make to the development of positive attitudes. It is the type of organisation to help the industries answer the fundamental questions of what we produce, how much and at what price.
It was right for all those concerned to respond cautiously to the report of the British Agricultural Export Council in March 1981. We have seen quangos before. Was this to be another hidebound monster? I was always worried about the apparent non-effectiveness of the central council. I may be wrong, and someone may shoot me down in flames, but years ago someone remarked in Punch that a play was "shattering" in its lack of impact. That changed with the appointment of Nick Saphir as chairman. I welcome his appointment as chairman for Food from Britain.
The shape of Food from Britain is not without encouragement. It is a comparatively small and lean council. I take issue with the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes). He put his finger on the difference of approach between Socialism and free enterprise. The rigidity that would be introduced by having statutory representation—people being elected from virtually every body—would make Food from Britain into a hidebound monster. That does not mean that there is not an immense responsibility on the incumbent of the Minister's job to keep in touch with the industry so that the bright stars of that industry do not go unnoticed. They should be

recognised and drawn in to make their valuable contribution to the industry. It is an enormous challenge, and it would be stifled if there were statutory representation. What is being done is a big gamble. We have not witnessed a palpable track record of successfully changing the attitudes of the industry by what has gone before. We must, therefore, step out into new pastures and be brave.
I like the structure of Food from Britain. I call it a self-liquidating quango—it absorbs one and then sets out to dissolve itself. It is also important to achieve a proper balance of the interests concerned. It must be monitored. Clause 5 properly requires that a report be presented by Ministers to Parliament with an annual report that is prepared by Food from Britain.
The wastepaper baskets of the House are regularly stuffed full each day with this or that report from this or that public body. Of the things that they have in common, one is that they are nearly all unread and another is that they are inordinately over-elaborate and expensive. I plead for a plain, simple to read, short and inexpensively produced report that is in tune with the industry that it serves. Moreover, the money should be kept at the sharp end, where it is needed. There is not a bottomless supply.
Food from Britain must monitor itself so that it does not become cumbersome and bureaucratic. It must he lively in mind and approach and it should reflect, and continue to reflect, the unfettered approach of the Minister's five Marketeers when they analysed the problems in the first place. It must also be innovative and stay within its financial constraints. The continued identification and recruitment of new talent is also a major responsibility.
In his press statement on 7 June my right hon. Friend the Minister said that
the success of the organisation will thus rightly depend on its ability to convince the agriculture and food industries that the services it provides are worth paying for.
I want to see full and enthusiastic commitment from all sectors of the food industry. The taxpayer is putting up about £20 million through the Government. Equivalent enthusiasm is the least that the relevant industries should contribute to match that investment in our future.
A few years ago I went to Covent Garden early in the morning as the guest of a fruit retailer. We saw how Kingdom apples were being marketed. I picked out the stall where Kingdom apples were on display. I saw a major producer of apples who, although he apparently supported Kingdom packs, was promoting them under his own name. I remarked on that and noticed that tucked away in the box was the little Kingdom insignia. I questioned my host on the matter and he told me that the supplier was waiting to see which way the market bounced before committing himself. I do not want to see that. I want to see proper commitment from Food from Britain.
Only if there is commitment up front will the new body get off the ground and be able to contribute as it should. It is not enough for the industry to sit back and wait and see. It should be in full cry for a larger share of the market abroad and a greater share of the home market. I welcome the Bill as an essential step in that direction.

Mr. Stanley Newens: The Bill proposes the establishment of a new organisation to develop and co-ordinate the marketing of agricultural, horticultural and food produce. We all support that. I hope that the hon.


Members for Hereford (Mr. Shepherd) and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) will not, for party political reasons, suggest that the Opposition do not fully support the Minister's objectives in that regard.
More than 10 years ago, a committee under the chairmanship of Sir Richard Trehane suggested that such an organisation should be formed, that it should be controlled substantially by the producers and that it should have similar objectives to those set out in the Bill. By setting up an agency that will include representatives from distribution, manufacturing, farming and horticulture, the Bill should provide the basis for improving the marketing of British produce, as has been done by similar organisations in France and Germany. That is a desirable objective.
We should recognise that much of the food that is produced in Britain is of higher quality than that produced elsewhere. British people often fail to recognise that. One example dear to the hon. Member for Hereford is apples. We probably produce the best flavoured apples in the world. The huge marketing campaign in which the French have indulged with Golden Delicious—a heavier cropping apple—has convinced some British people that our produce is not of such good quality, although it is better.
It will be recognised that the Bill is in the interests not only of the agricultural, horticultural and food industries, but of the consumer. However, I am worried about the way in which the Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation is to be superseded by the new organisation in spite of the Minister's assurances. I agree that it would not be sensible to have both the CCHAC and Food from Britain in existence at the same time, but the full list of the CCHAC's functions and objectives have not been restated in the Bill. Apart from the transfer of the functions mentioned in clause 2 and the arrangements set out in schedule 2, there is no commitment in the Bill to promote co-operation. That may be what the Minister intends.
Co-operation is a proven method of organising marketing in agriculture and horticulture. Perhaps part of Food from Britain's function will also be to promote co-operative marketing. However, it is not right that the Bill should not state that explicitly. I hope that that omission will be rectified in Committee.
We must remember that originally the central council's objectives were not limited to co-operative marketing. They also included co-operation to provide assistance with production, storage, transport, common purchasing, research and the spread of information about the principles and methods of co-operation. The Bill mentions none of those things.
Some critics may argue that the central council has not done enough to promote and fulfil those objectives, despite the excellent job that it has done to encourage co-operative marketing. Even if that were so, it is no reason to depart from the objectives of the 1967 Act. We should seek to encourage the fulfilment of those objectives in our agriculture, horticulture and food industries.
Although the Minister had early associations with the milk distribution sector of the co-operative industry, he may not share all my views. However, there is a strong argument to support the view that the co-operative form of enterprise ought to be encouraged as a means of giving

men and women the opportunity of participating in their own businesses as well as enabling existing business to co-ordinate their functions.
So far, the Bill does not seek to achieve that objective. I have always taken the view that small business should be encouraged. The small business man is an important person in the community. In view of my family background, I speak with as much knowledge of that issue as Conservative Members. If people get together in a partnership or co-operative, they should be encouraged just as much as the one-man concern. The central council's function to promote such encouragement should not be overlooked or discarded following the introduction of this new organisation. At present, Food from Britain will not be charged with that responsibility. That must be put right.
Links with the retail industry are also desirable. One of the difficulties of achieving this in the past has been that agricultural and horticultural co-operatives have sought to get the highest prices for their products while retailers, through competition or acting on behalf of consumers, have been forced to seek the lowest possible prices. The Bill aims to bring producers and retailers together and recognises the part that each must play. That is a desirable aim. However, I regret that there has been so little mention of the retail co-operative movement, which has the closest affinity with co-operation in agriculture.

Mr. Peter Walker: I recognise the important role of the retail co-operative movement. Recently I visited some of its establishments and discussed the matter with its representatives. I have also corresponded with the movement and asked it to take a full and active part in the launch of this organisation.

Mr. Newens: I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman has taken that action, but to date that aspect of his activities has received little attention. It is important to bring the retail co-operative movement into this sphere of activity more fully than hitherto.
The Plunkett Foundation, founded by Sir Horace Plunkett in 1919, has over the years sought to bring retailing and agriculture together in the co-operative sector and has undertaken some interesting research. As long ago as 1928, Dr. Margaret Digby wrote a book—"Producers and Consumers"—for the Plunkett Foundation. That book advanced some of the very ideas that many people are now lauding as newly discovered. Here I declare an interest as a Labour and Co-operative Member of Parliament who has held office in the retail co-operative industry.
In view of that long-standing interest, which is just as alive as ever, I hope that careful consideration will be given to how best the retail co-operative movement can be drawn into this desirable project.
It is hoped that in five years the cost of Food from Britain will be borne entirely by the industry. I am slightly concerned about that. It is possible that in five years the organisation will be so successful that someone will propose that it continue along the lines of the central council. On the other hand, some organisations may exercise an undue influence over the way that Food from Britain develops. Therefore, I hope that the proposal to cut support, except that provided by the industry, will not finally be determined now.
This is particularly important with regard to cooperation. It is possible that in five years the organisations


represented on the board, if they do not include the co-operative organisations within the agriculture industry and retail trade, may discard an important part of the functions which many of us feel should be incorporated in Food from Britain's future objectives.

Mr. John Carlisle: The hon. Gentleman has gone part of the way to answering my question, but what organisations does he envisage might take over Food from Britain?

Mr. Newens: I shall not speculate. I could be controversial and advance views that are not acceptable to Conservative Members. However, when I think that the Government are doing something of merit, I see no reason to pick holes in it. Many of these organisations should be represented. The Opposition believe that Britain should have prosperous fanning and food industries. I do not wish to predict what may occur. I believe that anyone who considers the issue in a balanced way would wish to take these points on board.
The Bill needs some amendment. Future Ministers and food producers may not be aware of all the problems that we have mentioned today. That is why we should modify some of the clauses. It is important that our food, agriculture and distribution industries should get together to promote the marketing of our goods. In that respect I support the Bill.

Mr. John Farr: The hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Newens) made some sensible suggestions about marketing food. I agree that the quality of some of our English apples is unsurpassed.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister on the Bill. It has been said that the Bill perpetuates a quango. Once the organisation becomes self-supporting it will no longer be a quango but an ango—an autonomous non-government organisation—which is a step in the right direction.
I have several questions which the Minister could answer either now or later. Is the FFB—the Food from Britain organisation—to be set an annual target by the Government? Statistics from the Library show that staggering progress has been made not only in increasing exports of food but in cutting down food imports. The change has been dramatic. According to the statistics, between 1979 and 1980 there was an 11 per cent. increase in the volume of food exports and a five per cent. reduction in food imports. That is great progress. Perhaps the Standing Committee that considers the Bill could discuss the possibility of establishing an ideal target for the organisation.
Will the FFB's activities include the export of beer and spirits? I see my right hon. Friend the Minister nodding. I am pleased about that, because the export potential is tremendous. We are experiencing a boom in imports of wines and spirits from the Continent and elsewhere. I hope that the FFB will concentrate on stirring up the potential market for British beer and spirits in Europe and elsewhere.
I hope that the FFB will concentrate on the market for the many British foods which do not seem to be appreciated outside Britain. The best cheese in the world, Stilton from Leicestershire, comes to mind immediately. The only time that I have seen Stilton promoted abroad

was at an event in Strasbourg, when the French, Dutch and Belgians were given a chance to eat it. They wanted more, but they could not buy it there. I hope that a serious attempt will be made to exploit the export potential of our many other splendid cheeses, such as Cheshire, Leicester and Cheddar, and our new soft blue cheese, which could be an export winner. Once Lymeswold cheese is available thoughout Britain, it will have great export potential.

Sir Peter Mills: Does my hon. Friend agree that there is also a case for exporting rare delicacies found in some of our counties, which are known only in certain areas? I think of such products as Devonshire hog's pudding, Cornish pasties and starry-eyed pilchard pie.

Mr. Farr: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I am glad that he kept it brief, because the matter is serious. Each locality in Britain has its own speciality. The Midlands, Hereford and elsewhere have their own delicacies, some of which are better known than others. I hope that FFB will organise not only for the British market on a national scale, but for the markets abroad so that others can share the delicacies that we have enjoyed for many years.
The difficulties in the beef industry have been mentioned. There must be rationalisation of the industry at home before it can gain a bigger share of the export market for beef on the hoof and in carcase or processed form. The potential is there for expanded exports. Sections of the industry suffer from overcapacity, particularly in slaughtering and on the factory side. The FFB should help to persuade the beef industry to rationalise so that it is modern and up to date and can go forward with confidence in promoting British beef exports.
Several other matters are important and the FFB should be entrusted with them. One cannot export hay and straw from Britain to certain other Community countries. I do not know why it is forbidden. We cannot export hay and straw to the Republic of Ireland, because EEC regulations forbid it. There is an export potential for the best British hay, from East Anglia for example, to the Continent. The FFB should follow that up.
Another big market has been denied to Britain and has cost the country about £1½ million in foreign exchange in the last 18 months. I refer to the export of game, and particularly pigeons, from East Anglia to the Continent. European Community health regulations have forbidden the export of game from Britain. What formerly earned us more than £l million a year in valuable foreign currency is now denied to us.
I hope that Food from Britain will work on behalf of all our poultry exporters. I do not wish to see our poultry producers on the defensive because of a massive French turkey factory just across the Channel. Food from Britain should be anxious to promote the export of turkeys and feathered fowl of all sorts. Some of our poultry producers have been hit by the threat from the Continent. I welcome the Bill.

Mr. Robert Maclennan: I join all those hon. Members who have expressed a strong welcome for the Bill. Everybody welcomed it, with the notable exception of the spokesman of the official Opposition, the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes), an exception which was regrettable.


The Minister deserves special credit because of the interest that he has taken in agricultural marketing from the moment that he took office. He put a personal stamp on the drive towards improving agricultural and horticultural marketing. In trying to interest others in the industry in his objectives, the Minister has shown genuine enthusiasm.
If I ask several questions about the Bill, I hope that the Minister will understand that I am not being querulous but that I am fully committed to the objectives of the new organisation, Food from Britain, that the Bill will set up. However, I have heard farmers ask wryly whether the Minister's enthusiasm for promoting marketing might divert him from recognising that there are other areas of major importance in agriculture. For example, the Gracious Speech made no reference to proposals for the amendment of the agricultural holdings legislation.
Some farmers have also said that the emphasis on marketing—important though it is—was designed to divert attention from the startling decline in agricultural incomes during the Minister's period of office. The Minister's emphasis on marketing has been used on several occasions in the House to justify the price settlement that he achieved in Brussels earlier this year. However, I dissociate myself from ascribing any motives to the Minister other than a desire to form a more effective British marketing organisation.
The importance to agriculture and horticulture of effective marketing is underlined by the crises in several sectors during the past few years. The top fruits industry faced especially powerful marketing efforts from the Continent. More recently, the poultry industry has experienced a crisis. However, as the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) said, it would be wrong to regard the setting up of Food from Britain solely as a reaction to import penetration.
There are prospects for enlarging our share of the European market by more effectively promoting British food, which is of superior quality. The hon. Member for Harborough was about to take us on a gastronomic tour of Britain to sing the prates of the food that he favoured. I should love to follow him down those lanes and promote Dunlop cheese from Scotland, haggis and other delicacies.
I hope that the Minister will answer some of my questions when he replies, but others may be more suitable for discussion in Committee. How do the Government see the operation of the Food from Britain both in the short term, when they will be largely responsible for its financing, and in the longer term? I hope that the Government will not simply take refuge in the view that that is a matter for the organisation, although of course it must have prime responsibility. It would be possible for the organisation to concentrate mostly on advertising, but that may be dangerous because the beneficiaries of the advertising would not provide long-term finance to the organisation. Advertising may be of less benefit to food producers than to those further down the distribution chain.
A notable and obvious omission from the coverage of the organisation is sea fish. The Minister said—1 believe that it was a slip of the tongue—that the White Fish Authority was responsible for promotion. However, the Sea Fish Industry Authority's responsibility in that area is well known and important. Did the Government discuss with the industry whether it would be sensible to bring the

promotion of sea fish into the umbrella organisation? Sea fish is marketed in competition with many of the products that will be promoted by Food from Britain and we may need co-ordinating links between the organisations to ensure that they work together.
I do not dispute the nominations to the council. The individuals seem to be well versed in the appropriate trades and are well known to those who are interested in agriculture and food. However, two places are still vacant and it may be appropriate to appoint not a statutory representative but someone who is involved in the industry as a consumer. There is only one woman among the 13 members of the board, although most agriculture and food promotion is directed towards women shoppers. I hope that that will not be regarded as a sexist remark either by those who believe that men should do as much shopping as women or by those who believe that it is improper to draw attention to the sexual imbalance of such a committee. Consumers should be involved directly in the work of the council. The present members would be the first to admit that the satisfaction of the consumer is the prime objective of successful marketing. I am not sure—this is a Committee point—that the provisions governing membership of the council would permit a consumerist to be appointed. Perhaps that is an oversight, but if it is not I hope that the Minister will feel inclined to take up that suggestion.
The hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Newens) made an extremely thoughtful speech from considerable experience of retail co-operation. I should like to endorse some of his remarks about the worry that the amalgamation of the central council into the new organisation may lead to some loss of impetus in the work of the council in fostering co-operation. I hope that the Minister's assurance that this point has been noted, and that there will be a separate board to foster co-operation—I believe he said that there would be a separate chairman—will not be misplaced. We shall watch with great interest how that side of Food from Britain's work develops. Will the organisation be eligible for assistance from the European Community's funds that are available for promoting agricultural co-operation, of which we have made rather less use in Britain than a number of other member countries of the European Community?
The Minister has spoken of his hope that the council will move towards self financing. One can understand, both in the present climate of public expenditure and against the background of the Government's dogmatic views about public spending, that that is the type of statement that he would be able to sell to his colleagues. Some hon. Members must at least ask whether his statement about Food from Britain being capable of doing the job that he wishes it to do and being wholly self-financing, is somewhat optimistic, at least on the time scale which he has set out. I hope that he will keep an open mind, and that if it appears that the industry would be assisted by the injection of more public moneys than he presently intends, he will not set his face against it. It would not be impossible—although I may have misread the Bill—for the Minister to continue the funding somewhat beyond the five-year period which he mentioned.
It is clear that there will be a continuing Government responsibility—whether or not it is financial—for the success of the supply side of agriculture. The extent to which they are called upon to finance the industry in other


ways may depend upon the effectiveness of Food from Britain. Funds for Food from Britain could be a relatively inexpensive way of helping from time to time particularly hard-pressed sectors of agriculture. I hope the Minister will be ready to accept that possibility.
The Bill is most welcome and will enjoy the support of all who are interested in capitalising on Britain's outstanding agricultural industry and on the skills of those who are already involved in retail distribution, which also has its outstanding achievements. It is important that the House should wholeheartedly support the Government on this occasion. The Bill is the culmination of a great deal of hard work by the Minister and by a number of wise people with whom he has consulted. He is owed a great deal of credit.

Mr. John Spence: We grow a great deal of food in North Yorkshire, particularly in the constituency which I represent. I was going to make an impassioned appeal to the Minister to ensure that there is an expert from Yorkshire appointed to the council for his knowledge of agriculture, industry and food processing. I have decided not to do that because the Minister said in his opening remarks that the characteristics for which he would be looking in his appointees are wisdom, ability, talent, knowledge and expertise. That is a definition of a Yorkshireman, so I do not need to make an appeal to him. I am sure there will be a Yorkshireman on the council.
I welcome the Bill, which lays the foundations for a unified structure which will improve marketing performance for a major British industry to the benefit of the British economy. With the exception of the sea fish side, the reasons for which I fully understand, and which is subject to a further authority, the organisation will be the marketing arm of the agriculture and food industries and will tie them together.
I am aware that we have certain other promotional agencies which will be brought together by the new council. The council will be helpful and beneficial, and I wish it well.
A number of points in the Bill, particularly in clause 2, which may indeed be implied, could be put in specific terms. For example, clause 2(2) states:
Food from Britain shall have power to organise, develop, promote, encourage, and co-ordinate the marketing in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
Various matters are then mentioned. It would be beneficial from the industry's point of view and would make it explicit in the Bill, if the Bill said that there will be a power to conduct market research at home and abroad. I would lay particular emphasis on the market research abroad. We very often see in shops and supermarkets products from abroad which are nicely packaged, labelled and unfrozen and with handy instructions on how they should be cooked. As we grow the same type of foods at home, why on earth are we not doing the same thing? One finds on examination that the foreign producer has done the necessary market research into the British market, has found an opening, has spent the money on the research and then filled the gap. It would be a pity if we did not expressly charge the council to conduct the necessary market research both at home and abroad. The export market, as the Minister's figures have shown, has enormous potential.
The power to organise is conferred on the council. How the power is to be exercised is probably one of the most important questions and an explanation would be useful. It means gaining the confidence of those who produce and process our food. If we are going to organise producers we must get their confidence. That is an essential part of what Food from Britain must do.
In my constituency, agriculture, food processing, livestock production—pigs and poultry—are major businesses. I hope that the Yorkshire side, with its diverse participation in the food chain, will have proper recognition and that the confidence of that great area of the country will be gained.
We must all hope that the Bill will receive a speedy passage through Parliament. The Minister is to be congratulated on tapping this fruitful source of further income for Britain.

Mr. Ted Graham: I listened with appreciation to the opening speech by the Minister. I apologise for having been out of the Chamber for a few minutes but I had to go upstairs to get the results of the Shadow Cabinet election. I am smiling but I shall not give the details.
I warmly welcome the concept of the Bill and also the initiative and action of the Minister, who has obviously spent considerable time in preparing the Bill. As he said, it is not a complete package, and suggestions for improvement can be made in Committee, but the co-operative movement greatly appreciates the intentions behind the creation of the new organisation.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Mr. Newens) may already have said, the co-operative movement has a vast experience in farming and in retailing. Indeed, it would claim to be unique in regard to that nexus, to which I shall refer later. I know that my hon. Friend intended to mention some of the worries or apprehensions that some of us might have about the educational and philosophical role of the Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation, once it becomes subsumed as an organisation within the management and control of the new organisation. Food from Britain.
In some of the original discussions it was suggested that there would be two separate bodies, and we are a little disappointed in that respect. Although the same people would have been on both bodies, we wanted to ensure that the co-operative propaganda and proselytising carried on by the CCAHC would continue. I hope that the Minister will explain why the initial concepts were changed, although we are not suggesting that because of the change the co-operative input will diminish.
I was particularly struck by the comments of the hon. Member for Devon, West (Sir P. Mills), who expressed his worry that there might be a weakening of the co-operative content. The Minister, in his only intervention so far, was quick to point out that there was no intention whatever to weaken the present co-operative work, and that that was not part of the philosophy of the Bill. I accept that completely but I hope that the Minister will allow me to say something about the worries of co-operators.
When the Co-operative Development Agency was established in 1976, its establishment was for a set period and it was limited in both finance and function because it was recognised that there was already in existence the


CCAHC, which was founded and fathered by a Department. It was also pointed out that there was a Housing Corporation which had as one of its functions the promotion of co-operative housing.
The Minister will be aware that next Tuesday we are to have the Second Reading of the Housing and Building Control Bill, which makes a severe attack on the concept of co-operative housing by virtue of its provisions as to the right to buy for those who are members of housing associations. Therefore, we are worried that in Whitehall there will be three separate Ministries dealing with co-operative matters.
I look the Minister straight in the eye in saying that I accept completely his bona fides in wishing to maintain the integrity of the co-operative idea, but there is also a Department of Industry and a Department of the Environment. From time to time, many Labour Members have said that we would welcome some co-ordination. That is a criticism of Labour Governments as well as of the present Conservative Government. Although we are encouraged by the promotion of one aspect of co-operation, we do not want to see the other aspects weakened.
I hope that the Minister of State will repeat the Minister's assurance that his Department will ensure that the philosophy and principles of co-operative action and organisation will not be diminished but will be encouraged in the future. The official Opposition will look for that assurance.
Reference has already been made to some of the activities of the new council. The Minister has talked in terms of value for money and the proper use of public money. I draw his attention—and that of the Minister of State—to the growing relationships between multiple retailers and some agricultural organisations. No Labour Member has ever questioned the importance of marketing for agricultural or any producer-based co-operatives. Co-operative societies are fully conscious of that. The sale of their products is the touchstone of their success. Equally, the growth of direct contacts between agricultural cooperatives and some multiple food retailers has been a significant feature in recent years. The annual reports of the CCAHC give prominence to such contractual developments as well as detailing the grants given to them.
I hope that the Minister of State will take particular note that numerous joint activities are quoted in the CCAHC's annual report for 1982. It mentions a group formed by Buchan meat producers to service the Asda chain with a three-year target of 5,000 head of cattle. Given the undoubted stimulus to marketing activity which will flow from the new and dual concept, how will such marketing partnerships between producers and retailers be chosen, particularly in the case of those for which public money is to be made available? If, as a result of such cooperation, a leading multiple retailer decides on a producer co-operative buy-out, will he be allowed to do that, and on what terms, if the co-operative in question is, or has been, a financially assisted agricultural society?
The Minister will know that some agricultural cooperatives are already registered as companies or capable of conversion into companies. Integration and rationalisation, take-overs, and vertical and horizontal expansion, are rife in the retail movement. I hope that the Minister will assure Labour Members—and, indeed, those in

agriculture—that public money will not be used to encourage the fattening up of an agricultural co-operative so that it may eventually be taken over by someone else.
The official Opposition are disappointed with the proposed make-up of the council. I assure the Minister of State at once that we do not cavil at the individuals who have been chosen or at the criteria that the Minister has set out. We are not to have the statutory Scot, someone from Wales, someone from Northern Ireland, a woman member and a member from the National Farmers Union. We fully understand that the Minister wishes to have a group of men or women who, in his view, can make a sound contribution to the work of the new body. I ask the Minister of State to note that in the context in which we are creating a new organisation and seeking to maximise the marriage between the producer and the consumer of food in Britain, it would be hard to find an organisation better qualified than the co-operative movement to do just that.
When I looked at the qualifications of those who have been selected—I speak from blissful ignorance of any of them but respecting all of them—I found that the extent of a farm holding was given as a qualification. However, the co-operative movement is the largest farmer in Britain and farms 29,000 acres, which is no mean size. Twenty-eight per cent. of the milk consumed in this country is produced by our sources and £540 million is taken in retail sales of milk.
The co-operative movement has its retail problems, as does everybody else. However, we still sell more over co-operative counters than any one of our competitors. Between 9 per cent. and 10 per cent. of the food bought over the counter in Britain is bought over co-op counters. That amounts to more than £3,000 million, and over 10 million individuals voluntarily decided to join their local co-operative society.
I enjoyed what the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) had to say, and agree with his point about the council. I do not wish to diminish the credentials of those who are already on it, but if the Minister is looking for one or two more people to serve on the council, he should perhaps take into account the fact that someone with strong connections with the British cooperative movement might serve. I agree with the Minister, however, that this does not have to be someone who "represents" the co-operative movement.
It is the Minister's fond hope that in five years the organisation will be self-financing, and he told us how financial support will be diminished year by year. In five years agriculture and retailing will be making up that money. No organisation will pay more than the British cooperative movement collectively, as an agricultural producer and a retailer. I hope that the Minister takes those points on board, although I do not expect him to respond tonight.
The Minister will already be aware that the Consumers Association has made some caustic comments. It said:
For a body which expects to respond to consumer-led needs it looks all too much like every other producer-led board in the food and agricultural sector.
That was said before the make-up of the council was published. I hope that there is room for someone on the council with strong consumer connections.
Will the Minister take on board the following points that reflect the views of the British co-operative movement? First, may we be assured that there is a possibility that the council will be strengthened by a


consumer voice perhaps from the co-operative movement? Secondly, the co-operative movement is uneasy at the possibility of absorption of producers by retailer-oriented groups. Third, there is a conspicuous silence on what will happen after the five years. Will this be reviewed, and can we be told what will happen if the money that is required is not forthcoming? Will the Minister consider extending the five-year period for financial assistance? Fourthly, can the Minister give us an assurance that the co-operative ethic—a proud part of the British scene, which is strongly supported by many hon. Members on both sides of the House—will not be lost in this newly launched council?
The co-operative movement welcomes the initiative. We appreciate the energy of the Minister and congratulate him on doing a first-class job in providing the British people with a good opportunity. I agree with the hon. Member for Devon, West that we need not only to produce British food, but to market it and encourage British people to eat British food. That is something in which the British co-operative movement has a great stake. I warmly welcome the Bill.

Mr. Fred Silvester: Every hon. Member who has spoken so far has either an interest in the co-operative movement or a constituency that has a large farming industry. Coming from Manchester I have no farming interests, although I have one minuscule farm.
My interest in the Bill was aroused because a company with which I am connected made a minor contribution to the present effort in Holland by the British Food Export Council. Therefore, I became interested in the way in which the British food manufacturing and producing industry has substantially lagged behind in the marketing effort which, as the Secretary of State said, is so valuable.
Some points from that experience may be relevant to the new Food from Britain campaign. My right hon. Friend rightly emphasised that he was talking about the entire food industry. We have to recognise that the most organised section of the food industry is production. There already exist large and powerful food producing bodies. The scatter of manufacturers is considerable. As I know from bitter experience, any attempt to get manufacturers to co-operate is extremely difficult.
I shall not enter into arguments about who should be represented on the council, because I take the Minister's view on this matter. However, there are to be two people from the manufacturing side and one from the retail side on the proposed council. Most of the rest—I may have missed someone out—have connections either with the present central council or with one or other of the producing bodies.
It will be important to ensure that the processing industries are properly brought into the scheme. My figures may be a little out of date—they relate to 1980—but I understand that our exports of processed food were worth about £1,200 million. Exports of raw, natural produce totalled about £600 million. Although the processed food figure includes dairy products, which most people regard as normal agricultural products, we are nevertheless talking about substantial amounts of processed food. The biggest inroads made by the CMA from West Germany in recent years have been in processed foods, such as confectionery, pickles, biscuits and goods of that kind.
We should beware of overlap. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) insisted on calling this proposed organisation the "FFB". I twitched a little when he said that. One thing that has struck me, when researching this subject, has been that, apart from defence and the United Nations, I know of no other subject that has so many initials. There is the BOTB, the EEB, the various embassies, the BFEC and the chambers of commerce. All these organisations are busy in this trade. It is important to recognise the strong co-ordinating job that Food from Britain will have to play.
I note that my hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Trade is a sponsor of the Bill. However, it is not a primary concern of the Department of Trade, which means that there is a difficulty. The Department of Trade spends about £82 million abroad on promotion of British goods and services including food. It has many pots of gold—so many, in fact, that when one is involved in discussions, the BOTB is so keen to be helpful that it overlooks the regulations that are restraining it. The money has to come out of the right pot, whether for exhibitions or promotions or whatever. What is needed is the maximum flexibility to achieve as commercial an approach as possible. I hope that Food from Britain and the BOTB will work closely together. I am sure that will happen. It is essential that it should.
The main producer bodies—some to a greater extent than others—have conducted a powerful and successful marketing drive within the United Kingdom. They have done very well, but the picture is not the same with exports. It would not be unkind, in the majority of cases, to describe the position as a shambles. In Germany 40 per cent. of the money spent by the CMA is devoted to exports and 60 is spent per cent. internally. I am not sure about the French proportion. At one time 55 per cent. was spent on exports.
I hope that Food from Britain will place particular emphasis on the export drive. There will be a tremendous temptation among contributors to ensure that the home market is looked after and to see that this co-operative or that producer body gets its fair share. The fair shares route leads nowhere. What is needed is a strong, united global approach to selling food overseas. It is Food from Britain, not Food in Britain.
It is marvellous that the Secretary of State should have been able to get the money. Everyone cheers the £20 million over five years. I accept my right hon. Friend's point that most of the money is likely to be spent in the early years, tailing off in the latter years. However, it is not a large sum. The German budget is about £20 million a year and the French budget, where reorganisation has recently taken place, is knocking on for £12 million a year. In this country, in the current year to October, the Germans have spent nearly £500,000 on advertising in the press and on television. I should like to enter a caveat. I hope that I shall not be on the Standing Committee. Therefore, I shall make it now.

Mr. Norman Buchan: The hon. Gentleman can expect to be serving on the Standing Committee now that he has spoken.

Mr. Silvester: I think that I might wriggle out of it.
Overseas experience suggests that getting away without any form of levy or compulsory contribution is a tricky exercise. I know that the food industry will not like what


I have to say. However, I hope that the Minister will keep his options open. The need will not disappear. The United Kingdom will have to continue to promote its goods abroad. The industry, especially the processed food industry, will be highly fragmented. There are already many individual budgets on promotion which people will be reluctant to release. Some subscription or levy system may, in the end, be necessary. I hope that my right hon. Friend will think carefully before saying that everything will depend on the new organisation paying its way. In most countries, some kind of subvention will continue to be sought through the Government.
I join hon. Members in wishing the new organisation and the Bill every success.

Mr. John Carlisle: I am pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Silvester), who described himself as being in a unique position in that he represented virtually no one but himself and obviously his constituents. I declare an interest. I have been involved in the agricultural marketing trade for 20 years and still retain an interest. My remarks reflect, I think, the views of the United Kingdom Agricultural Supply Trade Association, which represents a large sector of the private grain trade.
My right hon. Friend will understand that, although my remarks may seem to be directed to a narrow sphere, they are nevertheless relevant to a part of the Bill. It is pleasant to see the Opposition joining the Government in welcoming the Bill. I also welcome the Bill, as does UKASTA. I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) talk about the aggressive spirit of marketing that is required, and several hon. Members have voiced similar opinions.
I sympathise with the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes) and his remarks about the appointment of the board on 7 June. The hon. Gentleman is right to bring to the attention of the House the fact that it might have been wiser for the Minister to wait until the Bill had started its passage through the House, or had actually been approved, before making the appointments, admirable though they are. It is nevertheless good to see the Opposition on our side.
I hope that it will not be seen as churlish criticism to introduce into this atmosphere of bonhomie the view that the Bill does not seem to recognise the importance of the private trade, especially in the grain sector. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State will be able to say a few words about that. There has been support for the co-operative movement, which obviously has an important role. I represent an industry which, in value terms, exports more agricultural products than any other sector. Of those exports, 85 per cent. come from the private sector. If the private sector had not made the investment and taken the initiative, mainly without Government support, we should not be in the happy position today of having the facilities to be able to export.
It would be less than honest of me not to admit that I view the departure of the central council with a jaundiced eye. During its existence it never gave much help to the private sector. It was involved in what might be called almost statutory discrimination against the private sector. The money that has gone into the co-operative and the

group movement—I see my right hon. Friend beginning to squirm—has not changed since the Conservative Government came to power.
Those on the private side want to be recognised for what they have achieved in a traditional role. My right hon. Friend talked about the need for co-ordination of research. I remind him that vast sums of money have been spent by the private sector on research and development over many years, which has been recognised by his Department. This has helped British agriculture to achieve the position in which it stands today.
Enormous investments, some with Government help, have been made in storage and handling facilities. These have been to the mutual benefit of farmers and the trade. While the benefits of co-operation are appreciated, it is hoped that this apparent discrimination—it might comfort my right hon. Friend if I use that phrase—which seems to have operated in the past, will cease. Food from Britain must recognise, on the grain side—which is, in value terms the largest sector of British agriculture—the important part that has been played by the private trade and the important part that one hopes it will play as soon as the Bill becomes an Act, not only in the United Kingdom, but overseas.
Many hon. Members have rightly said that Food from Britain should play a major role in exporting goods as well as in improving marketing at home. We in the private sector look forward to co-operating with Food from Britain, and I hope that there will be a better recognition than hitherto of the work that has been done and the work that we intend to do in the future.
Because of the value of what we do and the value of the goods that we produce and market, we are disappointed that no member of the grain trade is to be appointed to the council. I understand that my right hon. Friend does not want too many members, and I realise the many and varied interests of those who wanted to get "in on the act", but we believe that the growing importance of the United Kingdom grain export trade merits some representation on the council of Food from Britain.
Despite that criticism, and despite certain misgivings on my part, we and UKASTA join many right hon. and hon. Members and people outside the House in wishing Food from Britain well, and we look forward to increasing and mutually beneficial co-operation in the years ahead.

Mr. David Myles: I join the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) and my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, West (Mr. Carlisle) in declaring an interest, in that, like the hon. Member for Cardigan, I am a hill farmer. I am also a director of a co-operative auction company. I would say to the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes) that, despite the fact that Douglas Cargill is the chairman of that co-operative, we have not received a grant from the central council.
I applaud the Minister for the enthusiasm that he has displayed since he took office and thank him for the part that he has played in the two answers to questions that I have had this week. First, I thank him for the reply that I had today on hill livestock compensatory allowances, from which I learnt that they are being maintained. That will give great encouragement to the hill farmers and primary producers such as the hon. Member for Cardigan. I thank him, too, for the part that he played in the reply that I received on Monday, about the deferment of duty on


Scotch whisky. That news was greatly welcomed in the trade, and it will do much to help Scotch whisky exports and the cash flow in the industry.
Agriculture is Britain's biggest single industry. That is worth repeating. Its gross output value for 1981 was £9,615 million, compared with Australia and New Zealand combined—often thought of as major agriculture producers—with a figure of £7,819 million. For Canada, another big agriculture producer, the figure was £7,408 million in the same sterling terms. That shows the importance of British agriculture.
Given the situation that now exists in the European Community, where a number of agricultural products are now in surplus, this Government initiative to improve marketing is timeous. Although it is frequently claimed by both pro- and anti-Common Market advocates that the guarantees in the common agricultural policy have achieved those surpluses, in my opinion the CAP has had a very small influence in this respect. The influence has been greater of plant breeders, animal geneticists, the rapid adoption of new technologies and the increased use of fertilisers. In other words, the surpluses would have been there, whether we were in or out of Europe.
Our membership of the Community has undoubtedly helped us to cope with those surpluses in a manner that has kept our industry reasonably healthy. It has also helped Europe, on the one hand, to influence what is done with American surpluses so that they do not damage world markets for us, and on the other hand, to stimulate a more coherent policy in helping the hungry world.
The national co-ordination of marketing envisaged in the Bill is becoming increasingly necessary as our production increases, so that we are not disadvantaged in the markets of Europe, or indeed the world, where many of our competitors are better organised in this respect. It is perhaps worth while to demonstrate the effect that a body such as this can have on attitudes. When the Meat Promotion Executive was set up in about 1974, an AGB survey established that only 26 per cent. of housewives thought that beef was good value for money. After five years during which that body co-ordinated promotion, in 1979 a similar survey showed that 67 per cent. of housewives thought that beef was good value for money. In that period, 1974–79, the value of beef in real terms increased considerably.
I welcome the fact that Douglas Cargill is to be the vice-chairman of Food from Britain. He is an old friend of mine and a neighbouring farmer, but that is by chance. I hope I can say in a Scottish accent that I hope there will be a formula, or at least an understanding—we do not want the body to be set up in a statutory manner that is too rigid—that Scottish producers will always have a voice. That is even more relevant with the setting up of the Scottish farm and food group by the Scottish National Farmers Union. I welcome that initiative, too. Specific parts of the United Kingdom with distinctive products and markets should be adequately represented. I am happy to support the Bill, and the results that it hopes to achieve.

Mr. Martin J. O'Neill: We have had a useful debate and the Opposition welcome the Bill. Clearly, we do not welcome all its aspects, but we can ventilate in Committee some of the misgivings that I shall highlight now.
The role of agriculture, in terms of import substitution and in terms of exports, has been a great help to the British economy during the past five years. The figures quoted by the Minister speak for themselves. If we are to approach this subject in a spirit of co-operation, it would be churlish to claim credit for any Government, although it should be recognised that more than one Government have been responsible during that time.
We are in general sympathy with the terms of reference of the proposed board. We have no objection to the membership of the committee, in that we believe that people such as Mr. Saphir have proved their worth with the central council, and we are glad that there will be some continuity. I share the views of the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Myles) about the suitability of Mr. Cargill and his acceptability to the National Farmers Union in Scotland. However, I should put on record the anxieties that were made a little more explicit by the NFU in Scotland than the hon. Member for Banff said. In a letter dated 29 September, the director and general secretary said to the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland:
The point I want to make is that whilst Douglas Cargill's appointment is very welcome indeed, we could in future scarcely count upon the appointment of a man so uniquely qualified to represent the Scottish co-operative and general farming interests even as an ordinary member of the Council, let alone as Deputy Chairman. It is for that reason that I am writing to urge the need as part of the new legislation for proper consultative procedures to be established.
The Labour Party is well known for its preoccupation with constitutional arrangements. In politics we have perhaps raised it to something approaching an art form and some of our skills may become evident in Committee, but we have to take account of the varying interests that must be represented on a body such as Food from Britain. Hon. Members on both sides have made claims on behalf of individual interests and I support my hon. Friends who represent the Co-operative Party.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Mr. Newens) traced the considerable contribution that the co-operative movement has made to agriculture over the years through the Plunkett Foundation. My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Graham) referred to the dominance of the co-operative movement in its retail role in some areas. As food from Britain gets under way we shall hope to see that section of the production and retail sides given a voice.
The Minister made clear his appreciation of the co-operative movement's contribution, but only in response to an intervention. We would have been happier if he had expressed his appreciation in his initial remarks. It was inevitable that my hon. Friends would refer to the co-operative movement and the right hon. Gentleman should have anticipated their remarks.
However, I do not want churlishness to intrude into the debate, because it has been constructive. We shall want to return to the point made by the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Silvester) about finance. It is proposed that there should be a tapering of Government finance over the first five years, but we should welcome an acceptance of the fact that self-financing may not be as easy as the Minister suggested.
We shall seek to amend the Bill to give the Minister power to think again in the third or fourth year about alternative sources of finance. Perhaps the Government will have to continue funding the organisation. It would


be better to amend the Bill rather than have to go through the cumbersome procedure of introducing fresh primary legislation to deal with the matter.
The hon. Members for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) and for Banff (Mr. Myles) mentioned Welsh and Scottish initiatives. No doubt both the Scots and the Welsh would claim that they were first, but I will not join in that argument. However, as regards regional representation or, in the case of Scotland and Wales, national representation, it is important to realise that there may be one or two areas that could give advice to Food from Britain and that they should be more formally represented on the council.
My hon. Friend the Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes) mentioned the six-month time lag between the announcement of the membership of the council and the Second Reading debate. We recognise the difficulties involved in the parliamentary timetable and we appreciate the Minister's enthusiasm for one of his pet projects, but if we manage to convince hon. Members of the desirability of amending the Bill it will be difficult to give effect to amendments because the Minister has, in effect, appointed members of the council in advance.
The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) was right to refer to the promotion of sea fish. It would be useful to have clarification of the relationship between Food from Britain and the White Fish Authority. No doubt the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland will be an enthusiastic member of the Standing Committee and will seek to move an amendment to deal with the relationship between the two bodies. The official Opposition would view such an amendment sympathetically.
We are happy that Food from Britain has been set up. We recognise that the Agriculture Act 1967, passed by a Labour Government, went some way towards establishing more formal co-operation within agriculture. The central council has performed creditably and we welcome the fact that the chairman of the council has been appointed chairman of Food from Britain. It seems that he has been appointed with a standing-by status. It is almost like naming an embryo in anticipation of the child's birth.
The Labour Party has always supported co-operatives in agriculture. The previous Labour Government and my right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin), the former Minister of Agriculture, sought to ensure a prominent role for marketing. The improvements in import substitution and the exporting of food have been largely due to the efforts of previous Labour Governments. We agree that from time to time there must be improvements and extensions, and we welcome the fact that Food from Britain is being built on the sound foundations established by a Labour Government.
We shall seek in Committee to achieve some minor alterations in the Bill. There is no lack of good will from the Minister; he has invested considerable personal prestige in the project. We hope that the follow-through of what has been a successful public relations exercise will benefit our agriculture, consumers, co-operatives and the public at large.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith): We have had a useful and constructive debate. It is pleasant

to be associated with a Bill which has been broadly welcomed in a series of thoughtful speeches about the purposes of the Bill and the objectives of Food from Britain.
I am grateful to hon. Members for the welcome that they have given the Bill and I was glad to have confirmation from the hon. Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire (Mr. O'Neill) that it is welcomed by the Opposition. We were in some doubt about that after the opening speech for the Opposition. However, I do not intend to say anything more about that other than that it was one of the least relevant contributions to the debate.
Many points of considerable importance have been mentioned today. I shall try to deal with one or two in greater detail tonight, although we shall be able to deal with many of them in Committee. Two main issues have emerged from the debate—co-operatives and membership of the new body. It is significant that co-operatives have been the central theme of almost every speech.
The new body, Food from Britain, takes over the role of the Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation. I have found tremendously encouraging the full and open tributes that all hon. Members have paid to the council. I pay tribute not only to the staff and the members of the council but to those who established the council in its early days. I am sure that the present membership and staff would like a tribute to be paid to those who went before them.
The central council has been rightly praised for its success. Therefore, I say straight away that the new body will not diminish in any way the role, purpose and functions which the central council has carried out so successfully over the years. The new body will continue to carry out its functions. I make that plain. It is clearly established in the Bill.
The functions of the central council were established by the Agriculture Act 1967. In section 58(2) one sees the purposes of the central council, which are not changed in any way by the Bill. If hon. Members read the repeals clause of the Bill, they will see that that section remains on the statute book and forms the basis for the continuing co-operative function of Food from Britain. The legal basis of the new body remains the same and will so continue.
Food from Britain will not diminish the work and drive of the co-operative work of the central council. It will take on the council's responsibilities for co-operation and, as has been said, it will continue to receive the same annual contributions from the Government for the exercise of those functions as the central council. I emphasise that that contribution is a continuing one. It is not subject to the five-year limit as are the marketing activities of Food from Britain.
Although discretion rests with Food from Britain, I understand that it will probably be the intention to continue to carry out co-operative functions under a co-operative development board which will be an integral part of Food from Britain. The deputy chairman-designate, Mr. Douglas Cargill, to whose abilities tribute has been paid, is foreseen as the chairman of that development board. Under the direction and drive of such an individual, we can have every confidence that the co-operative effort will be not diminished but sustained.

Mr. Buchan: We welcome the assurances that have been given and the suggestion of a co-operative


development board. Surely, therefore, it is imperative that the functions and role of the new body are made explicit in the legislation, partly because one of the effects of the legislation will be to develop that role through the consciousness of people who are involved. Will the Minister address his mind to that before the Bill goes into Committee, as Labour Members will? It would be helpful too if the role of the new body could be seen not only to be underpinned by the Bill but made explicit in the way that has been set out.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I do not disagree with a word that the hon. Gentleman has said. It is already explicit in the Bill. Clause 2 makes it clear that the functions of the central council are transferred to Food from Britain. One cannot be more explicit than that, although one must read it with the provisions of the 1967 Act. I shall have an open mind to any improvements that may be suggested in Committee. However, on the legal advice that is available to me, I am clear that those functions are utterly undiminished by the Bill, but I should be happy to consider any suggestions that would make the matter more explicit. This an important matter, and it was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West (Sir P. Mills), the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells), with all his experience of the WAOS in Wales, and also in a constructive speech by the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Graham). We are all anxious that those functions should continue.
I go one stage further and say that the mere fact that Food for Britain is to have a positive and dynamic role in marketing and is to combine that with the work of the central council, means that co-operative work will be given a new status and drive, rather than diminished. That is how I see it and I hope that it will continue.
My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, West (Mr. Carlisle) struck a slightly contrary note. I understand what he says, and he has been consistent in making his views known. However, he is incorrect to distinguish between assistance for co-operatives and what may or may not be available for other enterprises—particularly the grain trade. After all, the private sector is involved as well. I am conscious of and sensitive to the points that he has made. They are matters which I and my Department watch carefully. The new body will rightly review its policies on co-operative grants from time to time and be ready to deal with any unfairness that may arise. I appreciate what my hon. Friend said, although I do not agree with all his views.
The hon. Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire said that membership of the new body should be directly representative of different sections of the food industry. We had that argument two years ago when we introduced legislation for the new Sea Fish Industry Authority. The matter was debated fully in Committee then, and I have no doubt that it will again be debated fully in Committee.
As my right hon. Friend said, when we made the suggestion about the way in which the new body should be appointed, we did not come to a conclusion just by chance. We came to it after a great deal of thought and consultation. As many hon. Members have acknowledged, the Bill is the result of an enormous amount of research and much public debate in the past three and a half years.

I can think of few Bills on which there has been as much public debate, and I am grateful to all those who have participated in it.
If we reflect on the make-up of our food industry, which was emphasised by my hon. Friends the Members for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Silvester) and for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Spence), we find that we are dealing with an incredibly varied industry, ranging from production, through processors, merchants, wholesalers and retailers to companies with interests in exports. If, we sought to make the governing body of the new organisation completely representative of such a diverse industry we would end up with a numerical membership that would make the body unwieldy. It would be difficult to reach decisions, and that would detract from the essential dynamism that the body should have and which we wish it to have. We want a body that will be flexible in its operation. The way in which we have drawn up the membership gives greater flexibility and will lead to a better and more effective body.
I make it clear, as I did two years ago about the Sea Fish Industry Authority, that in making appointments to Food from Britain Ministers will take into account the variety of interests in the food industry, as we did with appointments to the Sea Fish Industry Authority. We shall take into account the representations that we receive from the many organisations and other bodies. I emphasise that it is impossible for all those who wish to be represented on the body to be appointed to it. I make it equally clear that, on the basis that we propose, we hope that those who serve on the body will not see themselves as delegates or representatives of a particular organisation or as part of the industry from which they come. We want them to bring to the body all their expertise, knowledge and experience. When they become members of the governing body they should bring to it their independent judgment on what is right and best for the food industry of the United Kingdom.
Having done that for the Sea Fish Industry Authority, which has been in being for just over a year, I am encouraged to think that the approach is better than that suggested by the Labour Party. I shall not enter into a Committee debate, although I am verging on that. It is obvious that hon. Members on both sides of the House believe that the matter is important. In preparation for the Committee stage, it is important that those who have contrary views to ours should know the basis of our views. I look forward to a more detailed debate in Committee.

Mr. Graham: Whether or not the membership of the council remains as it is now, does the Minister envisage that by the end of the five-year period the industry will be wholly responsible for funding the activities of the council? I make this point to the Minister as a politician. If the industry, particularly the retail industry, believes that its representations are not being met or that the people concerned do not have sufficient knowledge of the problems, difficulties will arise. Success depends on acceptance by the industry arid the people that what is being done in their name is being well done. One must have regard to representation as well as taxation.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I respect the hon. Gentleman's views, because he speaks with considerable experience. I shall take his views into account in Committee.
My hon. Friends the Members for Devon, West and for Harborough (Mr. Farr) referred to the meat industry. I


know that they are interested in that. That sector is facing difficulties. My hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West asked whether the new body could do anything about slaughterhouses. That is a different issue, which must be dealt with in other ways. I hope that my hon. Friend is reassured by the active interest that has been taken by bodies such as the Meat and Livestock Commission, which has made proposals, which we are currently considering and which I hope the industry will consider. The initiative that my hon. Friend envisages for the new body is not appropriate. Other means should be sought.
The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) referred to the marketing of sea fish. Its exclusion is intended, because the responsibility has been given to the Sea Fish Industry Authority. That is right, because the catching and landing of fish, which are part of the whole marketing process, are appropriate to a body such as the Sea Fish Industry Authority.
I accept that there is bound to be an overlap of responsibility between Food from Britain and the Sea Fish Industry Authority. I expect and hope—I have no reason to think otherwise—that the two bodies will co-operate to ensure that there is no duplication of activity, so that they make the best use of resources in the best interests of the marketing of British produce. I believe that one cannot avoid the overlap absolutely, but I hope that common sense will prevail to minimise the difficulties.
The hon. Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire referred to Scotland. Initiatives have been taken in Scotland, for example by the Scottish Quality Lamb Association. I was going to say that that was one of the first initiatives, but as the hon. Member for Cardigan is present I realise that that is a dangerous thing to say to him, so I shall say that it was one of the early initiatives on a large scale for the better marketing of produce from our farms.
The Scottish NFU was represented on the British Agricultural Export Council working party which did a great deal of the basic work that led to these proposals. The president of the Scottish NFU has welcomed the establishment of Food from Britain and pledged it full support. The establishment of the Scottish farm and food group, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Banff (Mr. Myles) has rightly referred, is seen by the sponsors of that body as complementary to Food from Britain. I welcome its initiative, which I believe is good.

Mr. Mark Hughes: I asked a specific question about the payment of money to Food from Britain. I should be grateful for an answer.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman an answer. I should have asked the hon. Gentleman to take the trouble to read the press release earlier in the summer, which clearly spelt out the intention to invite various people to serve. Members have not been appointed to Food from Britain, and they will not be, and cannot be, until the Bill has been passed. They have not been paid. My right hon. Friend has asked those people to stand by to help prepare Food from Britain. If the House decides on different numbers or procedures, appointments to Food from Britain will be made on that basis. It could not be otherwise.
Discussions on this matter have taken place with all the interested parties for the past three and a half years. It was necessary that an important new enterprise such as this, which is of benefit to one of our great food industries, should have momentum and not get bogged down in procedure and just wait for things to happen. I believe that it was right for my right hon. Friend to take certain initiatives, because they have maintained the momentum and dynamism that a new project such as this requires.
I believe that the way in which we have proceeded has been generally warmly welcomed by those who have a direct interest in the food industry. Over the past three and a half years perhaps the greatest achievement of the Marketeers, to which my right hon. Friend referred, is that they have got rid of the feeling that each part of the industry, whether producer, processor, merchant or retailer, had to operate in small compartments. My hon. Friend the Member for Withington made that point also. I believe that our proposals are supported by the industry because it realises that each sector is an important link in the food chain. Those links are joined, and if any one is weak the whole chain is weak. If one suffers and does not join, the strength of the enterprise will be that much weaker.
It is in that spirit that we have proceeded and that the House has responded to the Bill. I hope that we shall go forward to the Committee stage with the same spirit to improve the Bill and bring into operation as soon as possible this new body not only in the interests of the British food industry but in the wider interests of the British economy.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

AGRICULTURAL MARKETING [MONEY]

Queen's recommendation having been signified—

Resolved,

That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to establish a body corporate to be known as Food from Britain to improve the marketing of food produced or processed in the United Kingdom and of other agricultural produce of the United Kingdom; to transfer to Food from Britain the functions of the Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation and to dissolve the Central Council; to enable certain other marketing organisations to make contributions to Food from Britain; and to repeal section 61(9) of the Agriculture Act 1967, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—

(a) grants made with the approval of the Treasury to Food from Britain by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Secretary of State for Wales and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland;
(b) loans made with the approval of the Treasury to Food from Britain by any of those Ministers, provided that the aggregate amount outstanding at any time by way of principal of the sums borrowed by Food from Britain shall not exceed £500,000; and
(c) such allowances, remuneration and pensions, or such sums for the provision of pensions, to or in respect of any member of Food from Britain, and such sums to a person on his ceasing to be a member of Food from Britain, as those Ministers may with the approval of the Treasury determine.—[Mr. Goodlad.]

Wages Councils (Northern Ireland)

The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Adam Butler): I beg to move,
That the draft Wages Councils (Northern Ireland) Order 1982, which was laid before this House on 21st October, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.
This order was originally laid before the House on 20 May 1982 and was then considered by the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills, as is the procedure with an order of pure consolidation. The Joint Committee was satisfied that the order represented a pure consolidation by consolidating the Wages Councils Act (Northern Ireland) 1945 and the enactments amending that Act. The Committee, however, in its report of 25 June recommended that section 19 of the Wages Councils (Northern Ireland) Act 1945, which deals with schemes for holidays with pay, be repealed in the order as it served no practical purpose, and no record of it ever having been used exists. On consideration of the advice of the Joint Committee, the order was withdrawn and relaid with the repeal of section 19 included. The inclusion of that one amendment means that, strictly speaking, the order is no longer pure consolidation, but it has the effect of making a more coherent statement of the law relating to wages councils. The Joint Committee, in its report, stated:
After careful consideration, the Committee are of the opinion that the repeal of section 19 would have the desirable result of achieving a more satisfactory and tidier consolidation of the law and that an Order to that effect, although not pure consolidation, would be likely to commend itself to Parliament for that reason.
In the light of that urging of the Joint Committee, I commend the order to the House as a sensible bringing together of the law on wages councils.

Mr. Clive Soley: The Opposition are content with the consolidation order. The Minister will know that during the past 48 hours anxiety has been expressed by the trade unions in Northern Ireland as to whether it was just a consolidation order. I understand that the Minister has assured the trade unions that, in effect, there will be no change in the working of

the wages councils. I know that the trade unions are content to accept that reassurance from the Minister. On that basis I shall conclude my remarks.

Mr. Michael Brown: I acknowledge that this is principally a consolidation measure. Has my hon. Friend been moved by the arguments that have been put to his right hon. and hon.
Friends at the Department of Employment by Conservative Members during the past two or three years about the concept of wages councils and their impact upon employment in the rest of the United Kingdom? Will he feel able to come before the House one day and suggest that employment prospects for Northern Ireland might he improved if there were no wages councils' instructions?
My hon. Friend will have heard on many occasions from my hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington (Mr. Townend) that employment prospects in the United Kingdom are hindered by wages councils. This might not be the appropriate time to debate the principle of wages councils, but does my hon. Friend think that employment prospects might be assisted if one day the concept of wages councils was looked at not only for the United Kingdom, but for Ulster?

8 pm

Mr. Adam Butler: Mr. Deputy Speaker, you would probably not wish me to be tempted too far down the path that my hon. Friend has attempted to entice me along. I am aware of the exchanges that take place in the House and outside over wages councils. Indeed, I am sure that my hon. Friend is equally well aware of them. Of course, we consider the benefits and the disadvantages of wages councils. However, in Northern Ireland we have been following the practice adopted over the years by both Labour and Conservative Administrations of trying to tidy up anomalies. For example, only this year we merged three wages councils in the clothing industry into one council to simplify the councils' workings. My hon. Friend has raised some important points, but on this occasion it would not be right to comment further.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the draft Wages Councils (Northern Ireland) Order 1982, which was laid before this House on 21st October, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.

Northern Ireland Civil Service

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Goodlad.]

8 pm

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: I wish to bring to the attention of the House a matter that is not unimportant to those concerned. I have given the Minister as much advance notice as possible of the nature of the issue. I must, however, refer briefly to the background.
It is a sad and ironic fact that Northern Ireland was deprived, by a fluke, of local government. It so happened that the former Parliament and Government known as the Stormont constitution was taking steps to absorb virtually all the functions of local government at the very moment when its own existence was terminated by this House. It was an automatic consequence, but not a consequence intended by Government or Parliament, that the responsibility of this House has extended since 1972 over a province of the United Kingdom virtually destitute of local government as that term is understood elsewhere.
A minor consequence, though an inevitable consequence, of virtually abolishing the old local government system in the Province in 1972–73 was that the great majority of the staff who had served the local authorities were transferred to the Northern Ireland Civil Service. I should add that they were in no way less able than the colleagues whom they joined in the Civil Service or than their corresponding numbers on this side of the water.
When the changeover took place, a specific undertaking was given to those officers that after the transfer they would
enjoy conditions of service not less favourable than those previously enjoyed
in local government "taken as a whole." I believe that there is no dispute about the nature of that undertaking or about the fact that at the time when the officers were tranferred and that undertaking was given, one of their conditions of service was that it would extend to the age of 65.
Recently, a process has been initiated in the Northern Ireland Civil Service to reduce the compulsory retirement age during the next four years from 65 to 60. That raises the question whether that process should be applied to the officers of the appropriate grade—I think staff officer and above, or the equivalent—who are transferees from the former local government service. Does the reduction of their compulsory retirement age from 65 to 60 represent a deterioration in their terms of service "taken as a whole"?
I have given a good deal of thought to that point, and I can only come to the conclusion that it represents a real and substantial deterioration. After all, those individuals had every reason to plan their lives, and to make preparations for the end of their careers and for their retirement, on the assumption that they would continue to serve, that their pensions would continue to accrue and that they would be in full earning capacity, until the age of 65. I cannot see that it is not bringing about a deterioration in the conditions of service if an employee who has properly anticipated serving to the age of 65 is told that, on the contrary, he is to be compulsorily retired at an earlier age—perhaps even five years earlier than he had envisaged.
I am sure that the Minister will not underestimate the importance of that proposition on the ground that it affects

relatively few people. Naturally, 10 years after the transfer, relatively few people will be affected by the modification of the assurance that they were given on transfer. However, I would be astonished if the Minister gave the smallness of the numbers affected as a reason for disregarding considerations that would be accepted if more people were involved. It so happens that one of my constituents is involved; but there are others involved all over the Province. Most of them are now occupying responsible positions; some of them have positions in the all-important relationship between the administration at Stormont and those district councils which are the vestigial remains—one hopes that they will not be so for ever—of Northern Ireland local government.
So I set on one side the consideration of numbers. I must then ask whether the Government have been, or should be, influenced by any anomaly that might be created between those transferees and their colleagues in the Northern Ireland Civil Service. Obviously, if the Government were to interpret the undertaking in the way in which I argue it should be interpreted, we could have two members of the Northern Ireland Civil Service in other respects comparable except that one is a transferee and the other is not. The one would be obliged to retire at 60 and would have his prospective retirement compulsorily brought forward; the other would not. It cannot be disputed that that is an anomaly—blessed word. The one person would be treated differently from the other. A small minority would be treated differently from the great majority.
However, an anomaly is objectionable only if there are no sufficient grounds for it, and in this case there is the sufficient ground that the minority were given an assurance which it is the Government's duty to maintain.
Thus I have narrowed the ground on which the Government can stand, if they do not take the course that I press upon them, to that part of the terms of transfer that refers to conditions of service "taken as a whole". The Minister may seek to argue—although I hope that he will not—that in other respects, by reason of being members of the Northern Ireland Civil Service since 1973, the transferees' conditions of service have been more beneficial and advantageous than those they enjoyed when they were local government officers.
I do not interpret the expression "taken as a whole", in dealing with a person transferred from one service to another, as capable of being met on that type of consideration. Of course, if a special improvement was made in what would otherwise have been the conditions of service of these individuals in consideration of the fact that their age of retirement would be reduced, then I should say that the two must be taken together, that the reduction with its disadvantage and the special or compensatory concession must be taken together.
I can quite see the force of the words as being necessary to avoid what might be an absurd rigidity, but those words cannot be taken to mean—I am sure that they were not taken by the individuals concerned to mean—that if, when a lower compulsory retirement age is imposed, we can discover ways in which someone is now better off in the Northern Ireland Civil Service than he was 10 years ago in the local government Civil Service, we can put that into one pan of the scale against what we are doing in reducing that person's retirement age and then, appeal to the term "taken as a whole" and, say, in the words of the parable:
friend, I do thee no wrong".
The Government are doing wrong to those individuals. They are defeating the natural meaning of the legitimate expectations—indeed, the guaranteed expectations—with which they were transferred from one service to another. That is why I am taking this opportunity to ask the Government to reconsider what I understand is their provisional view—that the reduction of the retirement age should apply to the transferees as it applies to other members of the Northern Ireland Civil Service.
I hope that even if the Minister cannot tonight give me grounds for hope of a change of heart on the part of the Government, they will nevertheless consider the arguments that have been advanced in the debate. Otherwise—I say this in no grudging or minatory manner—there will be a number of individuals terminating their official service to Northern Ireland who will genuinely and with what in my opinion are good grounds believe that at the end of that service they have been cheated out of what they believed they were entitled to expect and upon which they have built. It could not be to the advantage of the service as a whole that the Government should take a course which would have that effect. I hope that I shall receive some encouragement when the Minister replies.

The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. John Patten): It does not surprise me that the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) has chosen to pick the terms and conditions of a group of civil servants as a fit subject for tonight's debate. The right hon. Gentleman has taken a close interest in the affairs of the Civil Service in Northern Ireland for a long time. He was good enough not long ago to pay a substantial and substantive compliment in the House to the Northern Ireland Civil Service for the work that it does. I am happy to agree with him, and I am pleased to report that that has been well received. I can also report that in the in-house magazine of at least one Department in the Northern Ireland Civil Service—the Department of Health and Social Services—the right hon. Gentleman's view of its efficiency was headline news. That in-house journal is circulated among 50,000 whole-time equivalents.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: I hope that my views of the Foreign Office and its proceedings in Northern Ireland will receive similar and favourable publicity.

Mr. Patten: I regret to say that I am not on the mailing list of the in-house magazine of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but I dare say that it sits somewhere that it can be consulted.
I should like to take this opportunity, I hope with the right hon. Gentleman's concurrence, to pay tribute—it should be paid often-to the work of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, especially for the work that it has done in the past 10 or 15 years. It has been a difficult period of civil and other disorder in Northern Ireland and the service has kept going throughout the bombings. The service has kept going—not limping, but as a Rolls-Royce—through bombings, blastings, mayhem and sometimes murderous attacks on civil servants. That has been an object lesson to civil servants and Administrations around the globe. We should not allow ourselves to get away with simply saying that they have done great service for the people of the Province. They have done great service for the people of the United Kingdom.
I am also grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving me early and full notice of what worried him. That has made it all the easier to prepare and, I hope, deploy the arguments, even though I may not convince the right hon. Gentleman with all of them.
When the local government officers were transferred to the NICS in 1973 on the reorganisation of local government, their terms and conditions of service, as the right hon. Gentleman said, were properly protected by legislation. The Local Government (Transfer of Officers) Order (Northern Ireland) 1973 provided that the terms and conditions of service offered to them in the Civil Service should be no less favourable, taken as a whole, than the terms and conditions that they enjoyed in local government immediately before they were transferred. Most of the officers who were transferred were transferred to the Department of the Environment. Some went to other Departments. The Departments offered them the same conditions and terms as applied to the rest of the Northern Ireland Civil Service. Although there were differences in detail between these and local government terms and conditions—local government terms and conditions were not all the same within the Province—the Departments considered that, taken as a whole, the Civil Service terms and conditions were not less favourable.
The right hon. Gentleman has mentioned retirement rules. In local government in 1973 the retiring age was generally 65. In the Civil Service, the retiring age was 60, but the practice, as opposed to the principle, was that an officer, provided he was, to use the deathless prose of the trade, fit and efficient, could normally remain until he or she was 65, but he or she did not have the right to do so. It was a matter of policy, not of right. There was a difference here, but it had no practical effect as long as the policy of the Northern Ireland Departments was to allow officers who wished to do so to stay on to 65.
In any case, in the opinion of Departments, any detriment in the retirement conditions was clearly arid substantially offset by improvements in terms arid conditions elsewhere. The right hon. Gentleman reasonably asked for some examples. There were decided improvements in pension provision. The right hon. Gentleman is rightly worried about his constituent and others who are caught in this way. Under the Civil Service pension scheme the local government officers were able to pay for their widows' pensions at a much reduced rate and were also able, if they wished, to pay contributions from annual salary rather than in one lump sum due on retirement. Those arrangements were of great benefit to those who had transferred. In the case of some of those who were transferred, there were undoubtedly increased career opportunities. Equally, others benefited from increased emoluments—in other words, more money.
I am afraid that it is not possible, as the right hon. Gentleman may wish, to draw up an exact balance sheet. He and I, as well as people working in the Northern Ire rand Civil Service, can draw up a list of competing and conflicting calculations to prove this, that or the other, but no clear calculus can provide a balance sheet.
There is some case law to which we can look, even if the figures prove nothing in this context. There was an appeal under the Local Government (Transfer of Officers) Order (Northern Ireland) 1973, which was heard by an independent tribunal in 1976. That tribunal was set up by the then Department of Manpower Services. Its chairman


was Mr. James Lloyd McQuitty QC, who was afforced by Sir Harold Black, a senior retired civil servant, and Mr. W. J. Blease, now Lord Blease of Cromac.
In that case, the appellant had, exceptionally, enjoyed terms and conditions of service in his own branch of local government that did not require him to retire at 65. It seemed almost to confer on him the delightful rights of life fellowship that people used to enjoy in Cambridge and Oxford colleges. I have it on good information that, as late as the 1950s, some people continued to work in Northern Ireland local government past their eightieth year—almost a Gladstonian style of employment.
That gentleman claimed that he had suffered detriment on entry to the Northern Ireland Civil Service because the retirement age was 60 and he could only remain on after that subject to being fit and efficient, but had to retire at 65. The tribunal carefully considered the arrangements for retirement in the Civil Service, and said that arrangements must be considered in the light of the substantially enhanced value of the appellant's pension rights. It added:
in all the circumstances, the appellant was at all material times, if anything, better off than before his transfer.
What of the reasons for the change in retirement policy in the Northern Ireland Civil Service? In common with the United Kingdom Civil Service, the Northern Ireland Civil Service has been contracting. This has had a number of obvious effects. It has substantially reduced recruitment opportunities for school and college leavers as well as for the unemployed. It has also reduced promotion opportunities and movement up the ladder for younger officers. In these circumstances, it was thought right to change the policy of allowing officers to stay on after 60—the official retiring age—and to require those above certain grades to retire at that age. That is the background to the policy decision to alter the practice of allowing people to continue beyond 60, and it has been the practice common in most, but not all, cases since 1973.
I assure the right hon. Gentleman that it is not proposed to do this in any hasty or arbitrary way or without any regard to the expectations and commitments of people approaching retirement, to whose needs he correctly referred. Indeed, Departments have tried to strike the best balance between these considerations and the wider needs of the service in the Province.
The reduction in the age until which officers can stay will, therefore, not be introduced at a stroke. It will be introduced progressively year by year. Officers of 63 years and over will be required to leave in the summer of next year; those aged 62 on 1 April 1984: those aged 61 on 1 April 1985; and those aged 60 on 1 April 1986 when these new and carefully formulated arrangements become fully effective. All officers will be given good notice—at least six months—and on retirement will be eligible for their full Civil Service pension.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: The Minister said that all officers will be given six months' notice. Does that imply that there is still an element of discretion to retain for a time the services of an individual civil servant, or will the six months' notice be a mere formality? That is a substantial point.

Mr. Patten: I am happy to inform the right hon. Gentleman that it is within the competence of the Civil Service to decide that someone who is fit and efficient may remain past the age of 60 if that is deemed to be in the interests of the service as a whole. Various safeguards are built in. It is important to consider the people who have a relatively short service, both in the Northern Ireland Civil Service and in their previous job in local government, and to ensure that their pension entitlement is not badly hit by early retirement. We have attempted to deal with that. We want to allow those who are fit and efficient to stay on to complete 20 years for pension purposes, or until the age of 65, whichever is earlier.
I assure the right hon. Gentleman that there has been the fullest consultation with the trade unions and the Northern Ireland Civil Service Whitley machinery. The unions do not oppose the general trend, although they have pressed for some amendments in detail, including exemption for former local government officers.
Following normal discussions in the Whitley machinery, the unions had a meeting with Sir Ewart Bell, the head of the NICS. The unions have since been informed that the new arrangements are to go ahead and that former local government officers cannot be excluded.
It is fair that former local government officers should be included. They have been fully integrated civil servants for nearly 10 years. They have shared the benefits of improvements in Civil Service terms and conditions and will continue to share in any that may be introduced in future for as long as they remain in the service.
I can understand their wishes, but they should not seek to exclude themselves from any detriments which from time to time their directly recruited colleagues in the NICS may be called upon to accept. Indeed, it would be unfair to their colleagues if they were exempted from new arrangements. I hope that local government officers can accept that.
I hope that the right hon. Member for Down, South will accept that we have endeavoured to give the fullest possible answer to his arguments. We welcome the care and attention that he has devoted to individual cases and to the NICS as a whole.
The situation is as I have outlined it. Whilst those coming into the service in 1973 may have hoped to be allowed to stay on until the age of 65—perhaps even longer in some circumstances—they did not have the right at that time. We have made the best arrangements that we can to help smooth the transition.

Food Production

Sir Peter Mills: I thank the Chair for allowing a second Adjournment debate. I hope that my thanks will be passed on to Mr. Speaker.
I wish to discuss the future of food production in the United Kingdom and the prosperity of British agriculture. There will not be much food production without a prosperous agriculture. The great debate for the future will be about the best method of obtaining the food necessary for our consumers and about achieving prosperity for agriculture. The debate will be about the best policies to adopt.
I have read with fascination recently some of the documents produced by the other parties. Members of the Labour Party have, of course, left the Chamber because they have gone home. The Labour Party has produced an article entitled "A New Direction for British Agriculture".
If I went to a market in the South-West and asked farmers whether they wished to have a new direction in British agriculture, they would all say no. They would say that they have had three or four reasonably good years and that last year, under this Administration, was one of the best that they have had for a long time.
Despite the world recession and difficulties such as high interest rates, we have had reasonable price reviews, good legislation and good leadership and we know where we are going in agriculture. Agriculture is emerging from the world recession in a better and fitter state than many other industries. Does British agriculture wish to have a new direction? Do we wish to have a new direction in food production? I do not believe so. To relate some of the objectives of the Labour Party contained in "A New Direction for British Agriculture" would make your hair stand on end, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
The Opposition are committed to taking Britain out of Europe. That action would be damaging to British industry, but it would be fatal to British agriculture. British agriculture in the Community has had success, support and the help of a strong lobby. Above all, the consumer has greatly benefited from ample supplies of food at reasonable prices, with no shortages. The future of British food production would not be helped if we were to leave the Community.
The article states that the party would shift the burden of agricutural support from the consumer to the taxpayer. Labour Members need their heads seen to. I have been a farmer for many years and to go back to the old system of deficiency payments and reliance on the Treasury would be enough to make my hair stand on end. We should have the same old battles and the same old enemy that never changes, the Treasury. The Treasury would continue to restrict help to farmers and such action would not help food production. It is wrong that the taxpayer should suffer in that way. People should pay a fair price for food. Since we joined the Community we have moved from the old system of support for British farmers and the change has benefited the taxpayer, the consumer and British agriculture.
I have heard—perhaps the Minister will confirm it—that it would cost the Treasury about £2,000 million to support British agriculture at its present level of support.

Such a sum would be very difficult to obtain from the Treasury. The Labour article, which is directed at future food production in the United Kingdom, says that it wants
good food at reasonable prices.
What a nerve the Opposition have. We have never had better food from British agriculture. There is an enormous range of the highest quality. If one goes into supermarkets, stores and retail outlets, let alone small shops, one sees an abundance of good food at reasonable prices.
The article states:
People will only be able to eat a proper diet, however, if the prices they must pay for the food they need are reasonable. On leaving the Community we will have the opportunity to take positive steps to bring about reasonable food prices".
What a nerve! I wish that a single Opposition Member were present at this Adjournment debate. Food prices rose more than twice as fast under the Socialist Government as they have risen under this Administration. The Labour Party has a nerve to put such rubbish in a document called "A New Direction for British Agriculture".
However, there is much worse to come. The article also mentions the public ownership—the nationalisation—of all land. Does the Labour Party believe that that will help future food production? I do not believe so for one moment and I have never met a farmer who believes it. If farmers believe that their land will be taken away from them and replaced by a Socialist Government bond that will probably become worthless in a short time, it will not inspire them to get on with the task of food production.
There is worse to come. The Labour Party is considering a wealth tax. No one likes to pay taxes, although we must do so, but to have the added burden of a wealth tax with a starting point of perhaps £100,000 would not help our future food production. I hope that farmers will take note of that. I look forward to showing this article, before the next general election, to the farmers and townspeople in my constituency.
The article states that farmers must pay rates for their buildings. That would be fine if food prices could be increased to cover it, but one can be certain that that will not happen.

Mr. Colin Shepherd: Does my hon. Friend agree that the track record of the Labour Party while in office gives us no confidence that, despite its assurances that there will be an increase in prices to cover land rating, it will discharge that promise?

Sir Peter Mills: My hon. Friend is correct. The article states:
We accept that this will add to the costs to be borne by agriculture.
That will not help our farmers.
The Labour Party is upset by all rural sports. I am upset by sport in towns and cities. Some of the action that I see on the football field and the exploitation of women in the city are a disgrace. Why should we be denied our rural pleasures that help to keep the countryside what it is? Of course, the Labour Party tries to be clever by saying:
Our proposals … will not affect … angling.
They do not affect angling because it is the largest sport in Britain and many Labour Party supporters fish at the weekends and enjoy themselves.
This document is a load of—. I must not say what it is here. It is well worth reading and then tearing up.
The SDP's policy—I am sure that you have heard of that party, Mr. Deputy Speaker—on agriculture provided me with the biggest laugh that I have had in years. At an


agriculture conference in Taunton this year, the SDP produced some ideas on its agriculture policy at the next election. The first was a reduction in meat, and dairy products. Why should we wish to reduce them? I wish to see British people eating more beef, mutton, Iamb and pork and enjoying butter, cheese and the other items that I mentioned in our previous debate on agriculture. The SDP said:
We believe that if people eat less meat there will be less pressure on the environment. Many of the systems used"—
It is a waste of time to read this document.
The SDP said, under the heading "Animal Welfare":
similar restrictions would discourage the export of live food animals, the close tethering of pigs, 'inhumane' veal production, and the excessive transportation of animals for slaughter.
The SDP wants a reduction in the consumption of those products so that those practices can be done away with. The SDP has it the wrong way round. What we need to do is to improve animal welfare standards so that production can continue and people can enjoy eggs, meat, and so on.
The SDP then refers to fishing. It decided
that fishermen's lead weights"—
I should be grateful if the Minister could explain this to me—
should be illegal and that fishing line should be made of biodegradable material",
whatever that means.
Dog licences are the last thing mentioned, although I do not understand what dog licences have to do with agricultural production. The SDP says:
dog licences should go up to at least £10 and the money be used for a dog warden system.
In fighting the next election, I shall have great pleasure in dealing with the Social Democrats on such a worthless document.

Mr. John Watson: I imagine that my hon. Friend will share the astonishment of a number of hon. Members that what has turned into a major debate on the alternative agricultural policies available to the nation should be attended by a representative number of Conservative hon. Members but not by a single representative of the Labour Party, the SDP, the Liberals or any of the minority parties.

Sir Peter Mills: My hon. Friend is correct but, with respect to him, if he had been in the House as long as I have he would know that this is not an uncommon occurrence. They all seem to disappear when we are discussing food or agriculture.

Mr. Michael Brown: We are seriously considering the great issue of food, and my hon. Friend has drawn attention to the so-called policy documents of the SDP and the Labour Party. The SDP states that it does not want increased meat production but probably, at this very moment, hon. Members of the SDP, hypocrites that they are, are enjoying, at a good dinner, the beef from my hon. Friend's constituency and all the other products that his constituency produces. In secrecy, they are enjoying all the farm products to which he is quite rightly drawing the House's attention.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Paul Dean): Order. We are straying a little. The Adjournment debate relates to the future of food production in the United Kingdom.

Sir Peter Mills: You are correct, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We were discussing how we were to achieve that food production and the various alternatives available. I take your point, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I shall come to heel, if I may use that rural term.

Mr. Colin Shepherd: Come to hoof.

Sir Peter Mills: Food production and what happens after food production depends very much on the healthy state of our meat plants. It is a fact of life that meat plants are in real difficulty. There is a 50 per cent. over-capacity in the meat plants. Too many buyers are chasing too few cattle. That is one of the major problems that we experience at present. At this point, I must declare an interest in respect of North Devon Meat.
There is a need for rationalisation in these matters. Small plants are important and useful and meet a local need but large plants are in trouble. They are expensive because they are up to export standard, and therefore costly to run. They cost a great deal of money to build and maintain. The danger is that the best plants will go to the wall if market forces continue to operate as they do at present. This would be difficult and sad, particularly with regard to what was said earlier this evening.
Recently some of us had a sobering experience in dealing with North Devon Meat. Matters got out of hand and many mistakes were made. We were chasing too few stock all over the country, paying a great deal of money for them, and not getting very high margins. We had almost a complete failure. Matters are now under control, we are back in profit, and we have learnt some sobering lessons.
It is important to keep the big modern plants going. They are part of the food production chain. If we are to export—I know that is the Minister's wish—we shall need to keep our large abattoirs at a high standard. The industry is in trouble. Any help and encouragement that the Minister can give will be appreciated. Perhaps he will tell us tonight what he thinks can be done. The industry is prepared to help itself, and the Meat and Livestock Commission has suggested a way forward. We shall have to consider its suggestions carefully and see whether something can be done.
I am very much opposed to council abattoirs. I hope that I am not treading on hon. Members' toes in this matter but I feel that it would be much better to leave abattoirs in private hands. I do not see why the ratepayers should have to pay for losses made by abattoirs.
There is genuine concern for the future of meat plants. We need to watch the matter carefully because they are an essential part of the food production chain, which runs from the food producer to the processor, then to the retailer and finally to the producer. Now that, under the Conservative Government, such advances have been made in food production, and now that the retailers have made such great advances in the presentation and sale of food, we do not want one of the chains in the middle to break down. My fear is that that might well happen.
I am very grateful for having been allowed to speak on such an important subject. I am also most grateful that the Minister has taken the trouble to come here to answer my points and those of my hon. Friends. I hope that he feels just as concerned as I do about the meat plant industry.

Sir Hector Monro: I should like to add to a few words to those of my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West (Sir P. Mills). The farmers of Britain owe a very great deal to my hon. Friend for what he has done over countless years in this House in promoting agriculture throughout the country. He has also been an excellent chairman of the Conservative agriculture committee. All farmers are fortunate to have him as their friend, and it is right that he should have raised such an important topic tonight.
Like my hon. Friend, I am glad that the Minister of State is here to reply to this short debate. As my hon. Friend said, 1982 has been a much better year than last year—and it needed to be. Although we have had some help from a more favourable summer, basically the economic improvement in agriculture has been due to the policies of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, whether they have emanated from the Ministry in England or from the Scottish Office. In that regard I pay my tribute also to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.
I was glad to learn from a written answer today that my right hon. Friend has announced the continuation of the hill compensatory allowances at the same rate as last year. It shows not only that there is a welcome improvement in the hills but, equally important, that the Government feel that we must continue to support the hill farmers in every possible way, because they play an important part in our agricultural production and in the social life of the countryside. Therefore, I am grateful for that good news today. I am sure that the Minister will do his best to see that we are paid our hill compensatory allowances early in the new year.
I was glad, too—this is an important point when considering agricultural production—that my hon. Friend demonstrated what could happen if the Labour Party came to power. Its wish to take this country out of the Community is foolhardy in the extreme. The CAP is not perfect, but we should strive to make it better. To come out of the Community would be the ruination of us all, apart from the other facets of the Labour Party's policy, such as nationalisation and rating of agricultural buildings and land.
When dealing with production, it is important to realise that the statement of the Labour Party this week about the spending of £9 billion to stimulate the economy will inevitably mean that taxation and interest rates will go up dramatically. This year it has been important for agriculture that interest rates should come down. It has been perhaps the greatest advantage to our farmers.
If a Labour Government came to power, interest rates would inevitably go up, which would have as dramatic an effect on the output of agriculture as any other act of any other Government. If interest rates keep coming down, they will add to the efficiency of agriculture because farmers will be able to afford new plant and machinery, the purchase of which is a struggle at the moment.
I am glad, too, that my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West reminded us of some of the policies of the SDP. We must never let anybody forget that the SDP is nothing but just another Socialist party. Its politicians are failed Socialists from start to finish. The SDP wants us to produce less meat and less milk, which would be the ruination of so much of our livestock farming. We must

keep bringing home to the nation the fact that Socialism is one of the most serious attacks on farming that can take place.
My hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West mentioned slaughterhouses and abattoirs, which are important for exports. My constituency also has important exporting slaughterhouses. We sell lamb of the highest quality to the Continent. The problem is not one of supply, thanks to our sheepmeat regime which has been such a success in helping sheep farmers, whether they are fattening sheep on the low grounds or on the hills. The problem, in the view of those who export, is the bureaucracy and red tape involved between the time that the container wagon leaves the abattoir and the time that it reaches the market, whether in the Benelux countries, West Germany or, particularly, Paris.
I have had correspondence with the Department of my right hon. Friend the Minister of State and the Scottish Office pointing out that in trade timing is of the essence for the whole operation. We must have simple, quick administration so that the meat can go as speedily as possible from the abattoir to the markets on the Continent. That is an important part of agricultural output today and an important input to the farmers whom we wish to see make a reasonable and fair profit from their production.
The agriculture industry is grateful for the firm policies that the Government have held to through thick and thin. We have not been pushed aside by Socialist dogma. We have stuck to our guns. We have given the farmers the chance to produce. Most important, we have brought down interest rates. This has probably added a larger sum to farmers' incomes than anything else.

Mr. John Farr: I wish to add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Devon., West (Sir P. Mills) on initiating the debate. My hon. Friend has done the House and the country a useful service in calling attention to the startling programmes of the Labour, Social Democratic and Liberal parties. If the other parties were to enter Government in the foreseeable future, it would be a calamity for British agriculture and even more so for the British housewife. After all, the customer must be more important than the producer. We in this House are concerned to see that the British housewife gets the best deal possible. We believe that she can secure that best deal by buying British wherever possible. It is therefore necessary for British agricultural production to be stimulated by the Government in the years ahead.
There has already been reference to the fact that the House is devoid of hon. Members except Conservative Members. The longest period on record of a sitting of the House with only Conservatives in the Chamber is 45 minutes. It is interesting that that time is about to be exceeded. We shall therefore have established a unique precedent involving the presence of Conservative Members alone during a major debate.
A remarkable and startling trend of increased food exports and diminishing food imports has been achieved. This trend, which the new organisation discussed in a previous debate today has been established to promote, can only continue upon the basis of a prosperous British agriculture. Unknown to most people—this certainly applies to Opposition Members—a revolution is occurring in agriculture. In almost all areas of agricultural production, with one or two notable exceptions, records


have been, or are being, broken. It is remarkable that these records have been achieved on a shrinking area of land utilised for food. When one considers that the labour force has also been declining, the achievement amounts to a marvel.
One is struck by the fantastic boost in home-grown cereal production this year. The fact that, for the first time ever, Britain is self-sufficient in cereals warrants a separate debate. We passed that milestone this year. It has useful long-term implications for the farmers who produced the success, and one hopes that the success will be maintained. However, the implication is even greater for the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and all those who seek to balance the Government's books. If we can be self-sufficient in a commodity such as cereals and produce about 23 million tonnes or 24 million tonnes per annum, as we have done this year, and not have to import the three million or four million tonnes per annum, or the five million tonnes when the Labour Government were in office, we could make a massive saving in costly overseas currency.
Let us consider another aspect of agriculture. In dairy output there has been a great improvement, and the capacity of our dairymen to produce our own dairy products has produced a startling change during the past three years. It has changed from a self-sufficiency of about 45 per cent. when the Socialists were last in office to approaching 60 per cent. now. Significantly, the figure is increasing all the time.
I do not have time to go through all the commodities tonight, but I shall mention one about which we are all worried, and that is beef. In agricultural rather than parliamentary terms, we have had a lurch from horn to corn. The reason is that cereal growing in Britain is reasonably profitable if one is well mechanised and knows what one is doing, and the weather is good. Indeed, the weather has been reasonably good during the past three years. On the other hand, the livestock producer is being beaten and the small man is being driven out of business—and, in my area of Leicestershire, the small beef finisher—because livestock has to be fed two or three times a day, attended 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and a man has to be available all the time. That does not apply to corn.
I am glad to see that an agriculture expert, the hon. Member for Barking (Miss Richardson), has appeared on the Benches opposite. It is nice to have someone to talk to for a change, apart from you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That is always a great pleasure.
With the difficulties of getting labour, and the even greater difficulty of getting skilled labour, there has been a greater tendency for people to get out of stock and into corn. After all, one can sleep at night when one has corn instead of cattle. One is not tied to a place when one has corn instead of sheep or pigs. If one's wife wants to go away for the weekend, one can get away. That is why corn has had such a big boost, while there has been a dramatic reduction in beef coming forward for finishing.
We have heard that we have over-capacity in abattoirs, but that was not so five years ago. Moreover, overcapacity has not come about suddenly. It happened because the numbers of cattle coming to the beef finishers

in Leicestershire and other areas where beef finishing traditionally takes place in Britain are not as great as they should be.
Just before the Summer Recess a number of us who are interested in these matters sought to obtain an Adjournment debate on the shortfall in cattle numbers. The shortfall is likely to increase for the next year or two and we cannot reprocess slaughterhouses. I expect there to be a 35 per cent. or 40 per cent. reduction in the number of fat cattle in the next two or three years.
The basic cause of that problem is that the average livestock producer, whether of cattle, sheep or pigs, is under pressure to get out of livestock and into the easier job of growing corn. There are economic and other reasons for that. He cannot pay the massive overtime rates for night and weekend work.
If the Government are as worried as I am that some slaughterhouses in the Midlands have been working at well below half capacity for some time and that many slaughterhouses throughout the country have reported massive deficits in the numbers of home-grown cattle for slaughter, they must restore the balance.
Cereal producers have done well, which is why there has been a swing towards cereals. I do not suggest that the Government should reduce the return to cereal producers, but they must adjust the balance correctly. If the average small farmer finds it financially essential to concentrate on cereals rather than stock, the Government should restore some of the incentives that livestock producers used to enjoy.

Sir Peter Mills: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind two other factors—the lack of Irish store cattle coming here to be finished and, more important, the enormous exports of bull calves, which are the raw material of beef production in this country?

Mr. Farr: My hon. Friend has great expertise in these matters and he is right, as usual. The number of Irish stores is about half the normal level, which means that there is a great shortage in Warwickshire and Leicestershire where the store markets are traditionally held.
The other point made by my hon. Friend is also valid. There is no incentive for the finisher to buy calves when so many are being exported to the Continent. I know that the Minister of State will consider sympathetically my suggestion that the calf subsidy should be reintroduced for calves that are produced for fattening in Britain, but not paid until the calves are six months old. The calves would have to be retained in Britain, because if they were sent abroad for finishing or slaughter the subsidy would not be paid. The Government must take some steps, however hesitant, and even if they are only a gesture. We must achieve a balance so that all the advantages do not lie with the cereal producer as they do at the moment.
We are seeing a revolution in British agriculture. We must ask ourselves two questions. Will the revolution continue, and how has it been achieved? It has not been achieved by accident or by the Government. The Government cannot take all the credit for the achievements of agriculture. Much has been done in research, plant breeding, genetics and so on. The achievements of our plant breeding stations are seldom mentioned in the House. They do a tremendous job. If we did not have the boffins to supply our farmers with corn which will have


a higher yield than five years ago, if all the genetic research were not done, we could not boast of the boost in British agriculture that has taken place.
There has been a tremendous advance in crop protection. Forms of chemical protection are changing every day of the week. Farmers have managed to keep abreast of the times and have changed with them. There have also been fantastic mechanical and technological developments. With our research abilities it is unlikely that such developments will cease. We are on our way now. If we continue the progress of the past three years, we shall become entirely self-sufficient in food in another 10 years. It would be a brave man who said that that forecast was wrong.
Whether such progress continues depends on the Government. The Labour Party's agriculture policies are barren in the extreme. Instead of farming being a career, as it is today, with a good future and a reasonable return for those who are not fools, it would become a hazardous business.
Without the common agricultural policy we would not have the security and prosperity that British agriculture enjoys now, and for which our fathers will show their gratitude by doing their duty by the nation and stimulating production even more.

Mr. Colin Shepherd: I am grateful for this opportunity to put my two bits worth into this interesting debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) on having had the foresight to request such a debate. The industry will also be grateful to him for such prescience and attention to its interests.
I was interested in the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr). However, I take issue with him on one small point. The difficult balance that must be sustained in the market place between the consumer and the purchaser is not one where the consumer is necessarily king. Man, goats and sheep are the only species on the face of the earth that will eat the seed-corn. Everyone else leaves a little behind. We have to be careful that we protect the seed-corn when our base instincts are to eat all that we can regardless of tomorrow.
I am particularly worried about tomorrow and food production. In an earlier debate we dealt with competition. I said that we had to beat competition not only today, but tomorrow, the day after that, and so on ad infinitum. Competition is never beaten, because it reasserts itself in another form to take account of the adjustments that have taken place in the market. That worries me most.
If we are to achieve continuity of supply—the dimension that my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough omitted from his equation—we must continue to carry out and apply research to all facets of our industry. The fragmented nature of agriculture means that it is alone among the other industries. It is essential that the research should take place on a sponsored and centralised basis.
Our agricultural, climatic, geological, geophysical and geographical conditions are peculiar to this country. Therefore, the research that takes place—for example, into grass husbandry—is not necessarily relevant outside this country, and neither is research outside this country necessarily relevant to circumstances inside it. Therefore, it is essential that we sustain our full programme of research.
It perturbs me to get vibrations coming through the ether that the Agricultural Research Council. which I am aware is not the direct responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, but is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science, is seeking to prune essential activities in agriculture research.
I understand that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is the main sponsoring agency for research undertaken by the Agricultural Research Council. I may be wrong. I have a constituency interest in this matter, but it is second to my main interest. The Hereford herd, which I am proud to have in my constituency, is a major part of the work of the Animal Breeding Research Organisation in Edinburgh. Both ABRO and the Hereford herd have benefited, although I appreciate that the herd is but a vehicle for the genetic research. Also in Herefordshire, but not my constituency, is the Rosemaund experimental farm. It is essential that its confidence is sustained and that the valuable work that it is doing continues.
I could go through various parts of the country, picking out institutes here and institutes there that carry out research on vegetables, grass, seeds and so on. Each of those activities is vital to the continued growth of United Kingdom agriculture production, the reduction of dependency on imports, the maintenance of our competitive position vis-a-vis our overseas competitors who look towards our markets and the financial aspect of substitution of imports and the creation of exports. That is a massive case for sustained activity in research
I hope that my right hon. Friend will make some encouraging noises that will lead me to believe that all is well in this area and that neither I nor the agriculture industry need worry about the future of that essential research activity.
When I opened my remarks I had in mind the words of King Henry VIII to each of his six wives "I cannot keep you long." I apologise for having kept the House for too long, but the importance of this subject is enormous.

Mr. Michael Brown: I was out of the Chamber when the Adjournment debate started. Suddenly, I saw the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) on the monitor screen. That encouraged me to return, because I realised that this would be a debate of great importance, and so it has turned out.
My hon. Friend has stimulated an important discussion on agriculture and food production, and I am grateful for the fact that we have been able to listen to his expertise. I was about to sit down for dinner, but I was prepared to let it go cold. My hon. Friend has drawn the attention of the House to the fact that we must ensure that the farming industry is given a base for the future. If the food and farming industry were to pick up the Labour Party's policy document, it could have no confidence in the future.
Not only was I tempted to break away from other engagements to attend this important debate, but two-thirds of the way through Opposition Members realised how important the debate would be and that they could probably learn something from the expertise of my hon. Friend even though they may have learnt nothing from the Labour Party policy document.
My hon. Friends the Members for Devon, West and for Harborough (Mr. Farr) have drawn attention to the fact that the food and farming industry depends upon its having


some hope for the future. Agriculture is based on investment today for generations ahead. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough said that, whatever the farming industry had achieved so far, it must have confidence in the long-term future. The Government have given dramatic help to the industry during the past three years. I am anxious to ensure that the Government continue to pave the way for the future of the industry.
I should like to bend the ear of my right hon. Friend the Minister about the industry's tax structure, which, especially when there has been a Labour Government, has sometimes threatened the willingness of the industry to invest for the benefit of future generations. The Government have made great progress towards easing the tax burden on the industry. However, I am sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends will agree that the tax regime should be made much easier. Farming requires a massive tie-up of capital. Farm machinery and equipment are sophisticated and involve a heavy capital outlay and require a reading of the future. The industry runs a tremendous risk because—perish the thought—one day the Labour Party may take office.
We should do more to ease the tax burden on the industry, so that it can show enterprise and initiative and have the incentive to invest in the future in spite of the adverse economic climate. If we ease the provisions for writing off debt and replacing farm machinery, we shall assist the farming industry whether a Conservative or Socialist Government are in power. The industry is looking well ahead. I hope that my right hon. Friend will use his best endeavours with the Treasury to ensure that it has an even better tax regime than the Government have created in the past two or three years.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith): The debate's importance has been highlighted by all those of my hon. Friends—I stress "hon. Friends"—who have spoken in it. Indeed, we attach great importance to this subject and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment, who is busy in other spheres, has given up his time to listen to the debate. That shows the importance that Conservative Members, at least, attach to our food industries. The debate follows another vital debate on our food industries, which again stresses its significance.
I join in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) on initiating the debate and on introducing it in his usual forthright fashion. He has an agricultural background and constituency and it is the least that we would expect of him to be ready to take the opportunity afforded by this debate. He gets up early in the morning although it means working late into the evening and I congratulate him once again on taking this opportunity.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Scunthorpe (Mr. Brown) has forgone his comfort and dinner to attend and speak in the debate. In recent weeks, my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) has had heavy responsibilities overseas, but he has taken the time—I know that he has another important visit to make tomorrow—to attend the Chamber. For the second time today my hon. Friends the Members for Harborough (Mr. Farr) and Hereford (Mr. Shepherd) have contributed to

debates on our food industry. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough said that those Conservative Members present had probably set a record this evening and it will no doubt go down in the annals of history. They have spoken for the longest length of time in this Chamber with no Opposition Members present.
However, it would be unfair not to mention the hon. Member for Barking (Miss Richardson), who is interested in consumer affairs and who represents consumers. I am sure that she has attended the debate because she knows that interest in the food industry goes much wider than those concerned with the production, processing or marketing of food. We welcome her presence and hope that she has benefited from the debate.
We would have been surprised if the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) had not been in the Chamber. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford referred to vibrations going through the ether. The moment that the phrase "Common Market" was mentioned, vibrations must have gone through the ether of the Palace of Westminster and stopped the hon. Member for Newham, South in his tracks. Without a thought, he immediately homed in on the Chamber with all the qualities of a homing pigeon, just as we would expect of him. However, we are glad that he has attended the debate and listened to the speeches made.
Several specific points have been raised. I think that it has been acknowledged that some of them are not my Ministry's direct responsibility. My hon. Friend the Member for Hereford raised some questions about research. Some of those responsibilities rest with the Ministry and it is correct that much of the sponsoring of work done by the Agricultural Research Council comes from the Ministry. As he probably knows, we strongly support the council, and I pay tribute to what has been and is achieved in research. However, direct responsibility for the council rests with the Secretary of State for Education and Science and I am sure that he will read with interest what my hon. Friend has said.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Scunthorpe mentioned taxation. That is a subject that is important not only to farmers and food producers, but to the whole economy. I am sure that my Treasury colleagues will read what he has said with interest.
Prosperous agriculture is important not only for the countryside and the consumer, but also for the other industries connected with agriculture. It is important that farmers have the ability to invest. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment will bear me out when I say that, among the major problems he must face, it is of some encouragement that investment in the industries that serve agriculture has remained relatively high compared with other sections of the economy. Not least in this regard is the agricultural engineering industry, which is important in many of our rural and industrial areas. The same can be said of other industries, such as agriculture construction. Some of the benefits from agriculture have, quite properly, spread throughout other sectors of the economy.

Mr. Colin Shepherd: I am glad that the Secretary of State for Employment is present. In considering their investment plans—I am confident that they will do so as a result of the Government's economic policies—should not British farmers carefully consider the possibility of


investing in British-made machinery, given the tremendous dependence of the West Midlands, especially the castings and drop forgings industries, on the health of the British agricultural machinery sector? That is surely one of the best contributions that can be made to overcoming our employment problems.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, whose comments carry great weight and importance. His views will have been noted by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment, but we must not push our luck too far, or we might encourage my right hon. Friend to leave the debate, and that is the last thing that we want.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Scunthorpe said, what happens in the rest of the economy is important to agriculture. The health of our agriculture and food industries is inextricably bound up with the rest of the economy. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries touched on that point when he referred to interest rates. There is no doubt that the Chancellor's economic success, particularly the recent reduction in interest rates, has been of immense benefit to agriculture. In recent years, there has been a great increase in indebtedness in agriculture, and in that context the recent reduction in interest rates has been of enormous help.
I also appreciate what my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries said about hill and livestock compensatory amounts. I am glad that he welcomed the fact that those allowances had been retained at last year's level. There was gossip that those amounts might be reduced, particularly in view of the success of the Community arrangements for lamb, which have greatly benefited the returns for sheep farmers. I am sure that the hon. Member for Newham, South has noted that British agriculture has gained from membership of the Community. I am glad that has happened, because we cannot emphasise too much the importance of the hill areas.
I am delighted to welcome the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan). The vibrations have obviously gone through the ether even more violently. The hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West must have been going around the Palace of Westminster wondering what the vibrations were. He also has managed to home in on this important debate. In case he has any doubts what the debate is about, we are discussing the future of food production in the United Kingdom and its prospects. He will not have to wait long to realise that.
I know that the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West is interested in hill and remote areas. I am glad that we have been able to maintain the level of the allowances to them. It makes sense to make the best use of hill and remote land for our livestock industry, especially for the production of store stock for onward fattening on lowland farms.
We often talk of supporting communities in hill areas in social and regional terms. The prime importance of those areas is their economic significance as part of the base of the food and beef production chain. We must maintain the fundamental economic justification for hill farming. It is significant that the Government have increased the hill livestock compensatory amounts to a higher level than ever before. Assistance to hill areas is higher than it has ever been. I am delighted that that is so. It emphasises the importance that the Government place on those areas.
My hon. Friends the Members for Devon, West and for Harborough mentioned the problems of the meat industry, especially the slaughtering industry. I touched on that matter earlier today. The industry is suffering from over-capacity. The lack of throughput has been a major aggravation. Nevertheless, we must recognise that with the tremendous modernisation that has taken place recently, even if throughput was dramatically increased, we should still be left with over-capacity.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West and others who are associated with North Devon Meat for overcoming those difficulties. It just goes to show that enterprise can turn a company's fortunes round even in difficult circumstances. It is a pioneering company that has managed to become profitable. I am sure that everyone will welcome that. It sets an example to others in the trade.
The Government have injected money into the slaughtering industry through the red meat scheme. Modernisations and improvements have been made. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough said that the industry had faced additional costs and difficulties with meeting export standards. We should not apologise for that. It is good that many of our slaughterhouses now meet export standards. We are now exporters of beef and other meat products on a considerable scale. I understand that there were also problems with meat inspection.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: Neither I nor my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) has heard all the speeches in full. If we had we might have contributed to the debate at greater length.
I assume that the hon. Member for Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) was referring to North Devon Meat and the imbalance, to which the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) referred, between stock and cereals. We export about 3 million tonnes of surplus cereals a year. Does the Minister agree that he and the British Government can do nothing about the serious imbalance in British agriculture. with its many repercussions, since there is no British agricultural policy? Prices are fixed in Brussels and that is that.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Our vibrations must be working well because the hon. Member for Newham, South has anticipated my next topic. I am delighted that he is taking part in the debate, but I am sorry that he missed the earlier speeches, because they were good. He would have improved his knowledge if he had heard them. I am sure that he will read them tomorrow.
I was talking about slaughterhouses. We have been examining the problems closely. The Meat and Livestock Commission has produced an interesting study on the abattoir section of the industry. I pay tribute to all those who put so much work into that report. I hope that it will be debated widely. We have already had discussions with the chairman and other senior members of the Meat and Livestock Commission and we intend to take the matter further.
The commission has produced further proposals. It thinks that the slaughtering industry could be rationalised using self-help. I am glad to see the proposals. We shall welcome further discussions. It is premature to comment on the details now, but I am delighted that the industry is prepared to suggest ideas for rationalisation. We shall do our best to assist. I emphasise that self-help will be involved. I welcome the spirit behind the ideas.


The arable and cereals sector was blessed with a good harvest north of the border last year and south of the border this year. The cereals sector has done well. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough and the hon. Member for Newham, South said, there is an imbalance between the arable sector and the livestock sector. I have made no secret of that. I have said that in the House and elsewhere a number of times.
It is impossible to define the exact balance, but in the last few years the balance has been wrong. Although returns for cereal producers have been good, they represent the basic on-costs for livestock producers. We should pay more attention to balance. The hon. Member for Newham, South will be disappointed to learn that the United Kingdom has taken an active part in reshaping Community policies. That is the difference between this Government and the Government that left office in 1979. I believe in changing the general direction of the common agricultural policy and I share some of the anxieties of the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) about some aspects of the CAP. There is scope for improvement in several directions but the present Government have achieved several changes.
Sugar is another commodity that is in surplus and for the first time we now have schemes similar to those that operate in other areas of the world whereby the surpluses of one year are carried over to the next. Part of the costs of the surpluses is borne by the producers. Under the quota and levy systems, when production exceeds a certain level, levies are increased. A financial disincentive falls on the producer who may be adding to the surplus.

Mr. Farr: Does the Minister foresee that the European Community will soon sign the international sugar agreement? As the Minister knows, under the Lomé agreement, we have a commitment to many Commonwealth sugar producers. The world sugar price has never been lower. Would the Minister comment on the possibility of the whole Community signing the Lomé agreement?

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: We have encouraged the European Community to join the international sugar agreement. Since the Government came to office, discussions have opened between the Community and the ISA countries. I am glad that those discussions have started. A major problem that has faced the Community was that until now it was not prepared to consider such matters as carry-over surpluses and co-operation in more orderly marketing on a world scale. The fact that the Community has now adopted some of the ISA countries' policies improves the prospects for our joining the Lomé agreement. We shall continue to urge the Community to sign the agreement.
At the previous prices-fixing meeting we supported a threshold for cereals. The threshold imposes a discipline on production beyond a certain level in one year in relation to prices the following year. We have moved only into the first stage of the threshold on cereals and many people would like to see even stronger disciplines. None the less, the present agreement on thresholds for cereals is a very important first step towards greater discipline on surpluses.
Up until now when prices have been increased they have been broadly in line with one another. The most

important change is about to take place. Almost exactly a year ago, the Commission produced a long-term policy document. Very much at the United Kingdom's urging, the Commission put forward the view that in future price-fixing of commodities such as cereals, where there is an imbalance of supply and demand, we must gradually move to a Community support price that is much closer to world prices. That was stated as an objective in the document and it is a good and correct objective. If that policy is to mean anything, action must be taken along the lines of the Commission's document. Although the change is not dramatic and nothing like the change that the United Kingdom would like, it is none the less significant that institutional prices for cereals at the last price fixing were two percentage points lower than the general level that prevailed for other commodities. That was a small—not enough but a token—first step in the right direction. The answer to the problem is to obtain a more realistic price for cereals. In preliminary and informal discussions with our colleagues in the Community on cereal substitutes, we have found a greater realisation that the policy must be sustained. The Government will continue to do all that they can to help.
My hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West at the beginning of his excellent speech mentioned the policies of other parties—the non-policies of one. I shall not tell hon. Members who arrived in the Chamber late what he said, but it was apposite. His remarks will be read widely by those in the food industry and by consumers.
My hon. Friend asked me about the cost of returning to a deficiency payments system. If we maintained the income of food producers, that could cost about £2 billion a year. Now that the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West is here, I would say that I hope that we shall not have a doctrinaire or dogmatic argument about the virtues of intervention as against deficiency payments. Neither system is necessarily right for agricultural support. Perhaps a mixed system, such as we have in the Community, would be better.
The intervention system has much to recommend it for easily storable commodities such as cereals, but perhaps the deficiency payments system would be better for perishable goods. The beef premium scheme and the sheepmeat regime are deficiency payments systems. A review of the premium systems is being conducted by the Community and the Government will argue their merits. I say to the hon. Member for Newham, South that the difference between this and the previous Government is that the systems are talked about more widely and are more accepted in principle than they were several years ago. They are not seen as freaks within the common agricultural policy, which is a tremendous step forward.
The intervention system can lead to surpluses. The early 1960s were one of the most anxious periods in farming since the Second World War. As a result of pressure from the Treasury because of the cost to the taxpayer of supporting a strong food industry we went through a period of standard quantities which led to much trouble and anxiety. The answer is not to go one way or necessarily to go the other way. I am sure, knowing the intellectual integrity of the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West, that he will never try to get into that type of argument but will debate the issues on their merits as I know my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West wanted to do.


This has been an extremely interesting debate. The one thing that the Common Market has given us—I ask the Opposition to reflect and to lay aside some of their broader prejudices against the Common Market—is a much more stable framework within which policies can be worked out than at any time since the war, except perhaps for that short number of years immediately after the war when agriculture was being built up through periods of food shortages to the end of food rationing. That was a totally different era for food production than that of today. The two eras are not exactly comparable.
During my time as a politician dealing with the agricultural and food industries, I have heard the constant cry for continuity, for a stable framework within which to work and for assurances, with regard to investment, of what the future holds. I am not blind to the faults of the Community, as even the hon. Member for Newham, South would admit. I have demonstrated the ways in which it can be improved and I shall continue to try to see that those improvements are carried out. What cannot be denied is that the common agricultural policy in recent years has given greater stability and continuity for the farmer and for the food industry generally and, perhaps most important of all, the security and stability which the consumer in Britain deserves so much as well.

Mr. Norman Buchan: I do not know how strong the vibrations are in the House, but it might have been useful if, during the middle of my diligent work at my desk upstairs, someone had drawn my attention to the television annunciator. I can only comment on a few of the points that have been made, but clearly reference has been made to policies of the type that I have been advocating over the past year or two. As the Minister of State is my pairing partner, he might have mentioned me during his remarks. It certainly sounded like that when I heard the familiar reference to £2 billion in deficiency payments.
I am always pleased to hear enthusiastic Conservative Members trying to defend the indefensible with regard to the Common Market, particularly the common agricultural policy. By any moral, intellectual or economic standards, it is a bad policy. We joined the Community not for its agricultural benefits but for its industrial benefits. That was the argument with which Conservative Members took us into the Common Market. They said, "Yes, the common agricultural policy is a terrible thing. It destroys food and it is expensive to the consumer, but it is a cost that we have to bear because of the immense industrial advantages that will be gained by joining the Common Market."
Recent figures have put a spike into that argument. The so-called industrial advantages now turn out to be a £5 billion deficit in the balance of manufactured goods. It is incredible that Britain, for the first time, has ceased to be a plus exporter of manufactured goods and is in deficit. We were told that the common agricultural policy was a bad thing that had to be accepted because of the advantages on the industrial side.
I should like to draw the attention of Conservative Members to a document issued by the Foreign Secretary to convince his European partners of our need to get a major rebate on our contributions. It is a most extraordinary document. It is such an indictment of the

Common Market that even that well-known anti-Marketeer, the European Member of Parliament for Glasgow, sent a telegram of congratulations to the Prime Minister on the ground that it made a better case for withdrawal than even she had been able to make over the years in Brussels. Among other things, it said that the trouble with the Common Market was that it involved us in high costs because of the basic high level of agricultural support, with no industrial benefits accruing from it.

It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]

Mr. Buchan: Therefore, we can dismiss the rather plaintive argument that the common agricultural policy is somehow a good thing. It was seen from the beginning as a bad thing and as a cost that we had to bear in order to get industrial advantages. We have had no industrial advantages, so we must now look at the common agricultural policy on its own merits.
At the end of his speech the Minister said that it could not be disputed that the common agricultural policy had given us a more stable framework. He said that it had given us more stability and continuity, but he spent most of his speech describing the changes for which the Government were arguing in the Common Market.

Mr. Spearing: And achieved.

Mr. Buchan: We have seen very little of that achievement. The Minister referred to all the changes that were being made, and at the same time claimed that there was stability and continuity. The Minister cannot claim credit for achieving continual change and at the same time claim that it is a stable framework, with continuity. The truth is that it is not stable. On the contrary, the CAP is beginning to create an economic crisis within Europe because of the cost of support, and the changes have not taken place.
In June 1980 there was the mandate which sought to bring about the major changes and shift for which the Minister was arguing, especially in the cost of cereals, but it has not happened. Conservative Members will remember the mandate on which they fought the last election in relation to the common agricultural policy. They said that they would bring about a price freeze on commodities that were in surplus. The prices of commodities in surplus have been rocketing ever since, so they have not achieved the changes that they claimed they would. If they had achieved them, it would make nonsense of the argument about a stable framework. They cannot have it both ways.
The hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Myles) also heard the vibrations, but they must have been less strong than in my case, because he disappeared after hearing some of the arguments from his own Benches. Earlier in the evening he declared that the progress made in British agriculture had nothing to do with the common agricultural policy. He said that it would have occurred in any case because of the amount of research, the improved technology, the new seeds and breeds, and the developments in livestock. So there is no case left for the common agricultural policy.
The truth is that the end price incentives provided by the CAP harm the consumer because we are paying an unnecessarily high price for most of our commodities. In August of this year the world price of wheat was almost


half the cost of wheat within the European Community. One of our basic items of diet is bread, and we had to pay double the cost for the raw material. That makes no sense for the consumer.
Hon. Members have spoken about sugar. We should talk to some of the countries which rely on sugar production for their very existence. They tell us that the surplus production of sugar brought about by the high price of sugar paid by our consumers is harming their very existence because of the dumping on the world market. The dumping takes place because each year, on only one kind of treadmill of change, prices continually escalate. Farmers respond by increasing production. The prices are paid at the expense of the consumer and the taxpayer. We are in the extraordinary position of paying high taxes for the pleasure of paying high prices. What we lose on the swings we also lose on the roundabouts. It is a nonsensical policy.
The Common Market pays high prices for the sugar that it consumes. We then have to pay for the export of sugar at subsidised prices, sometimes to the tune of £200 a tonne, to be dumped on the world markets. This has the double effect of charging us as taxpayers for the cost of dumping and of smashing the market for which countries in the Caribbean, the Pacific and Africa depend for their well-being.

Mr. Colin Shepherd: To judge from what the hon. Gentleman is saying, it seems that the consumer is paying an enormous price. Is it not the case that the food price index has risen by only two thirds of the level of the retail price index since the Government took office? Is it not the case also that the food price index rose more rapidly than the retail price index during the period of the Labour Government in which the hon. Gentleman served?

Mr. Buchan: That is so, because, starting from 1973, we saw an escalation of prices after we joined the Common Market. The hon. Gentleman is right. There was a major and sharp increase in prices throughout the 1970s, including during the period of the Labour Government. That was brought about by the double engine of our transitional period of catching up in prices, followed by an increase in our prices over those of the Common Market.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge the significance of a parliamentary question answered by his then hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), who had responsibility for consumer affairs, which showed that the influence of common agricultural prices was minimal compared with the general increase in prices over the period of his Government?

Mr. Buchan: The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) would have said that, would he not? There were other reasons as well.
The hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Shepherd) said that since then prices in the food index had risen by only two thirds of the general price index. However, food prices bear infinitely more heavily on the poorer people than on the better off because they spend a much higher percentage of their income on food, and therefore it is a higher cost for them. The poor pay a higher proportion of their income in farm support than the rich.
The corollary that because the increase in food prices is lower than the increase in the RPI the inflation rate is held down does not follow. On the contrary, any increase in food prices is part of the engine of inflation, and an unnecessary one. The crime is not that food prices are rising more slowly—that is beginning to change—but that this is an unnecessary addition to the general inflation. It is wasteful to spend money on food when it is in surplus so that it can be destroyed or dumped on world markets.
The European Commissioner made a speech in Oxford on 6 January and a similar one in Scotland to the Scottish Farmers Union. The points that he made have been picked up and thrown at me by every Government speaker since. He referred to the system that I have been advocating of a deficiency payments system which gives support to agriculture and ensures an infinitely fairer balance between the consumer and the taxpayer. I make no bones about my desire to shift the cost of agricultural support away from the consumer to the taxpayer. When the consumer bears the cost, the poor pay more. When it is taxation, the rich get a fairer share.
I hope that hon. Members will seek an early opportunity to read a book on agriculture by the hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body) who points out that the £2 billion, claimed to be the cost of the deficiency payment, becomes a total of £3,500 billion when all taxation elements in relation to the common agricultural policy are included. I do not believe that Mr. Tugendhat's accusation that my system costs £2 billion a year means other than that the present common agricultural policy costs £2 billion.
If hon. Members want further proof, I recommend that they read the report of the Select Committee in 1980. In his evidence, Sir Brian Hayes, permanent secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, said that the additional food cost to the British consumer as a result of the common agricultural policy was over £2 billion. That amount could go towards meeting the cost of any deficiency payment that I might seek to operate.

Mr. Spearing: I congratulate my hon. Friend on an excellent extempore speech. Does he agree that one of the advantages of the system that he advocates is its flexibility in meeting the needs of British agriculture? Conservative Members were worried about the future for farmers. Is not the CAP preventing small farmers obtaining an income and driving them out of business? Is it not creating difficulties for people who wish to enter agriculture? Does he agree that a deficiency payment system could be geared to the needs of British agriculture, especially farmers in hill areas, small farmers and those wishing to enter the industry?

Mr. Buchan: My hon. Friend is right. Once we have the freedom to plan and develop a proper support system in accordance with our needs, several things will happen.
Complaints have been made about the imbalance between livestock and grain. That is right. The cereal price means a loss to the livestock producer. We used to say that the pig is a walking cereal, because 70 per cent. of pig production goes in feed costs.
A great imbalance has occurred. It has begun to distort husbandry. There is pressure to produce a particular commodity not according to the soil and climate of the area but for reasons based on cold economic calculations.


Even though a particular crop should not be grown, there is the thought that more money can be made at the end of the day by growing it.
The case is not proved. It has never really existed. The claim for entry into the Common Market was that it would bring industrial benefit. It has not worked out that way. We need a policy that ensures that the cost of support is borne by those who can afford it. The nature of the support should mean that good husbandry is encouraged. It should not only produce a healthy agricultural sector, but help towards producing a healthy rural community.
In the seven years before Britain entered the Common Market, there was a 7·5 or 7·6 per cent. increase in productivity despite a loss of 60,000 jobs of farm workers. In the seven years after entry—I am talking about 1980—there has been a smaller increase in productivity and a loss of 65,000 jobs of farm workers. Over 15 years, 120,000 farm workers have lost their jobs. A major contributor to those losses was the form of support that was employed. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense".] I do not believe that we can have a healthy rural community when we replace workers on the land solely by commuters. I do not believe that an agricultural policy geared only to an end price is good for the community or the country or the farmers.
I leave the Minister with this final thought—

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman explain the relevance of the policies of rating agricultural land that have been put forward and the benefit that that will bring to rural depopulation?

Mr. Buchan: I shall answer that point. Our argument on the rating of agricultural land is simple. It does not arise primarily from an agricultural policy; it arises from a

social need. Local authorities in rural areas have to bear big costs, because of distance, for water, sewerage, roads, schools, and so on. Nevertheless, the major element in that local authority is not rated to provide a proper cash basis. That cannot continue. If the country believes that rating relief should be given for farming, it should be borne not by that rural community but by the whole community. Therefore, in introducing rating to assist the local authority, the cost of rating to the farmer will be part of the reckoning in examining farm incomes centrally I wish that Conservative Members, instead of picking up points, would read the policy that I have written. It is all in the Labour Party programme. I think that it costs £2. No doubt it would do them a lot of good if they read it.
Ultimately, the common agricultural policy has not benefited even the farmers. It has benefited some farmers. The farmers who are rich and big have been made richer and bigger. If that were not so, the Minister should explain why, if the common agricultural policy is so efficient, farm incomes dropped by half in the four years leading up to 1981. In other words, some farmers are doing extremely well, but smaller farmers, particularly livestock farmers, have a declining income—and sometimes increasing costs because of the profits being made by others in cereals—and an increasing indebtedness. Farming income as a whole dropped by half in those four years, and indebtedness to the banks trebled. What an indictment—to have a policy which is suitable neither for the consumer nor for the taxpayer, and which at the end of the day is not suitable for the farmer.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at seventeen minutes past Ten o' clock.